


Fighting Chance

by vamprav



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, BAMF Jessica Moore, BAMF Sam Winchester, Character Death, Chuck Shurley is Not God, Dean Winchester in Hell, F/M, Fallen Angel Sam Winchester, Fix-It, God is a dick, Gore, Jessica Moore Lives, Lucifer Redemption, M/M, Podfic Welcome, Resurrection, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-12 03:50:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 21
Words: 57,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19220980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vamprav/pseuds/vamprav
Summary: Dean dies in the days leading up to the finally showdown. Lucifer has almost warn completely through Nick’s body. Michael walks the Earth in the forgotten brother. Castiel blew his brains out all over Bobby’s living room. Flying by the seat of their pants has never been humanity’s strength but when the opportunity comes for Sam to fix it all he takes it, even if it makes him a little less than human.





	1. Funeral

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted on the Quantum Bang: http://quantumbang.org/  
> It's posted in full there but I'm going to be posting a chapter or two a day for a while.
> 
> Major Character Death: Dean dies and is dead for the first quarter of this but to time travel he gets better.  
> Gore: Lucifer's vessel is falling apart and it shows, fair warning.
> 
> I would like to thank Darian for the art she did for this fic, it's gorgeous and I love it. Here's the link: http://quantumbang.org/artist-showcase-darian-for-fighting-chance/

It was an accident. A stupid fucking accident that came out of nowhere and blindsided everyone.

It was a drunk driver, some stupid college kid that had gotten a hold of a fake I.D. and went out with his friends in an attempt to get laid. He’d obviously failed in his quest and turned to alcohol to drown his woes. Then, he’d driven home with one of his friends passed out in the backseat and ran a four way stop at top speed.

He’d hit the Impala side on, flinging the sleek black car into a tree. Dean had gone through the windscreen and hit the tree head first, cracking his skull open like a raw egg. The two drunk idiots in the truck had rolled, the driver broke his neck on the steering wheel, the friend in the back had been crushed under the roof when they  stopped rolling.

Sam had been in the truck behind the Impala and had stomped on the breaks so hard he might have broken something in his foot. He’d sat there in shock for a hand full of stunned seconds before he had tumbled out of the car and bolted over to the bloody mess that had been his brother. He’d struggled to get Dean’s body into the back of the borrowed truck and collected all of their hunting equipment from the Impala’s trunk. Dean would have killed him for leaving her behind but Sam had other things to worry about.

They were only half an hour away from Bobby’s and Sam felt every second of that time in the clench of his lungs and the heavy beat of his heart. He hadn’t called Castiel, not right then, not when there was still hope.

Ruby had once said that there was a time limit on how long a soul could stay away from its body before it didn’t recognize the vessel anymore. Sam had confirmed that with Cas, he’d been drunk when he’d asked and the falling angel had been struggling to manage tipsy. Crossroads demons had three days to snatch a soul from the holy gates before they were unable to retrieve it and Dean was earmarked for Heaven.

But the Crossroads had gone silent months ago. Hell was apparently on lockdown for the big event and was not accepting any new IOUs. So the only option was angels and Sam didn’t know if they were going to be any help.

He got to Bobby’s and carried Dean up the steps to a stunned Castiel and grim faced Bobby. Cas had cried, for the first time ever, and they weren’t pretty tears. He’d knelt next to Dean’s body for hours as great racking sobs shook his body. He’d passed out afterwards and that was when it really sunk in that Cas was mostly human now, with only the tiniest squib of grace left.

They waited a day, waited for Dean to wake up, waited for the angels to resurrect him. They didn’t and he stayed dead, stayed cold on the couch. They admitted defeat when rigor mortis visibly set in, if the angels were going to intervene the body would have remained perfectly preserved.

And why would the angels resurrect him, to be Michael’s vessel? Michael already walked the earth in the angel equivalent of a second best suit. They didn’t need Dean anymore so why would they bother with his life anymore than they would any other sack of rotting flesh.

Very few people came to the funeral.

Granted, Sam hadn’t really expected anyone to show up so the presence of what few people did was a shock in and of itself. Rufus and Sheriff Mills - who Bobby had to have read in on the whole situation by now - and a few hunters who had managed to get the full story rather than blindly following rumors.

Sam and Cas had spent the wee hours before dawn building the pyre, log by log, stick by stick. They’d drenched it in Holy oil after they were done and went inside to get Dean’s body.

The body was wrapped in cloth so white it nearly glowed where it wasn’t covered in the black scrawls of warding and the bloody enochian sigils that would in turn make it so that the corpse wasn’t able to be used by anything for anything. They’d carried it out, no mean feat but manageable with Sam’s strength and Cas’s fading grace.

They used a match to light the pyre ablaze instead of a lighter. And then they stood there while Dean’s body burned to ash. Cas sank to his knees after a the burial shroud caught and pulled back from Dean’s face.

One of Sam’s hands balled into a fist and the other came down to press against Cas’s shoulder. The body looked so peaceful, like it were asleep.

Sam could almost imagine his brother’s eyes opening as he sat up and yelled at them for being idiots for believing his ruse.  The massive hole in his skull where he’d hit the tree ruined the illusion.

Slowly, one at a time, the other’s left. Jody had to go to work, the hunters had jobs to get back to, and the phone in the kitchen had started ringing insistently. Sam and Cas stayed where they were until the pyre burned to ash and all that was left of Dean were a few scorched bones.

“He’s really gone,” Cas rasped past a bone dry throat, not taking his eyes off of what was left of the elder Winchester, “And I can’t - I would if - but-”

“Yeah,” Sam interrupted, blinking back tears, “I know, Cas, it’s fine.”

“No, it is not, it is  _ not _ fine,” Cas said.

“There’s nothing you could have done, Cas, even if you were there. I just-” Sam stopped and swiping angrily at the tears that were running down his cheeks.

“What?” Cas asked and looked up at Sam with those big, tear filled eyes. They were no less intense than they had been when Cas still had all of his grace and they seemed to pierce through Sam’s chest, straight into his soul.

“I wish I’d been with him.”

Silence followed that statement. Cas’s eyes had gone vaguely wide and terrified at that statement. Sam stared down at him as the words hung in the air around them.

The sun was rising in the east, the dawn was painted blood red across the sky and clouds were gathering in the west. They boiled over the horizon and stalked across the sky towards the sun like a great cat stalking its prey. Lightning flashed in those clouds, too far off to hear but lighting up the silhouette of a pair of massive wings.

Sam gazed at them with narrowed eyes, “That’s Michael.”

“Yes,” Cas said, “I think we should go inside, this will get worse before it gets better.”

“I thought we had more time,” Sam said, “I thought that he’d wait until Lucifer had me.”

“Michael has the upper hand, he’s a tactician Sam. He’s not going to sacrifice his advantage when Lucifer is in such a decrepit vessel.”

“Oh, little brother, you wound me,” a breathy voice said from their left.

Cas was instantly on his feet, blade drawn as Sam went for blade he’d tucked into the back of his jeans.

Lucifer smiled at them from behind faintly glowing teeth, blood welling up between the cracks, a wound on his side leaked a mixture of blackened, burnt blood and blue tinged grace. He was leaning against one of the old junkers that framed the area where the pyre had been, like his legs weren’t quite strong enough to hold him. The burns on his face were worst, the blistering skin had peeled back to reveal muscle and bone was poking through in some places.

“Last chance, Sammy,” Lucifer said, “Last chance. This shell is almost burnt through, will you be my vessel?”

“Cas, go inside,” Sam said.

“Sam-”

“Go inside, Cas, warn Bobby. You two need to get out of here,” Sam told him.

Cas opened his mouth to say something else but the look on Sam’s face made him stop. He took in the grim set of Sam’s jaw and hard eyes and seemed to think better of it, to realize that Sam was not going to turn back from the path he saw layed out in front of him.

The former angel sighed and seemed to diminish. He didn’t slump, he had too much muscle control for that. It was something internal, something just behind the eyes that was there then gone so quickly that Sam doubted it ever existed in the first place.

Cas nodded and turned towards the house, never taking his eyes off of Lucifer as he went.

Lucifer watched him go with an expression of sorrow that sat oddly on his face, like the half remembered sketch of a mask. It wasn’t fake per say but it gave the impression that the Fallen didn’t really know how to feel sorrow. But Sam got that impression with every emotion Lucifer displayed, like he had spent so long with just his own mind and demons for company that he had forgotten what emotions looked like on normal people.

When Cas passed out of sight Lucifer’s eyes wandered back to Sam’s face. Desperation sat in those eyes, so close to the surface that it was unnerving. And then Lucifer crumpled until he sat on his ass in the grease soaked dirt of the salvage yard.

It struck Sam how tired he looked, like if he went on standing for just one more moment he would pass out and not wake up for the rest of the millenia. His shoulders drooped and his head lolled to the side to  _ thunk  _ against the car’s wheel well.

“I wish I could help. He’s my brother, even if he hates me,” Lucifer whispered, just loud enough for Sam to hear, “When we Fell, I was able to hold my bond to Heaven wide enough to-”

Lucifer coughed, a great racking thing that sounded like his body was trying to bring up a lung. Sam watched in alarm as Lucifer bent at the waist and struggled for breath he didn’t need. It lasted for a few minutes before it stopped and the Fallen spat blood soaked grace onto the ground.

“My garrison is dead,” Lucifer said, still bent in two, “Azazel was the last, Heaven killed the rest a long, long time ago. My brother is dead, Gabriel, Gabriel… Michael, I don’t recognize him. He’s … cold, like frozen hellfire. Raphael has twisted himself into a mockery of what he was. It would have been nice to have one last brother to stand by my side at the end.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Sam asked and almost winced at his own tone but at this point cutting to the chase was probably more important than tact.

Lucifer laughed, a violent rasping thing that shook Sam to his core, “Nick’s about to pop like an overfilled balloon. I’m spending most of my grace holding him together.”

“He’s still in there?” Sam asked in horror, imagining what it might be like to feel your body slowly burning up from the inside out. If he said yes, would the same thing happen to him.

“No,” Lucifer chuckled and drew in a wet, shaking breath, “no, I sent him off to Heaven when I took his body. His wife probably welcomed him with open arms, his son, his son was reborn two days ago. Last chance Sam. I’m going to burst in a few hours and then it’ll be two archangels fighting in True Forms rather than vessels. The world will burn.”

Sam stiffened and thought of the two rings in the lock box under Bobby’s couch. There was no time to run back to the house to grab them and they wouldn’t even work without Death or Pestilence’s rings. He was standing in the middle of the junk yard with an angel that was so close to burning through its vessel that he was coughing up blood with no way out.

His hand still rested on the hilt of the blade resting against his spine. Sam slowly let his hand fall off of the hilt to hang by his side. He took a careful step forward, towards where Lucifer was slumped over.

As Sam got closer Lucifer carefully straightened, one hand going to steady himself against the side of the car. The smell of his burning blood hit the younger Winchester as he drew closer.

It smelled like fire and power and the scent of ozone that lingered just after a lightning strike. The scent tickled in his nose and Sam fought the urge to sneeze. His mouth was watering and his throat felt dry. There was no sulphur undertone, no meaty overtone that all blood had, no iron tang. There also wasn’t the smell of burnt flesh and scorched blood that Sam was overly familiar with.

How powerful was that blood? Demon blood had a kick to it but Sam had quickly discovered that the effect it had on his powers was dramatic. It enhanced them for a time but once the high wore off they were gone. He’d never considered what angel blood might do and he found himself wondering if it would do something completely difference.

“Why can’t you two just fight it out in Heaven? Why does it have to be on earth? Why destroy the prize that you both want to claim?” Sam asked as he got closer and closer to the bleeding archangel.

Lucifer laughed again, long and loud and grating. Blood bubbled past his lips and ran down his chin to drip into the dust between his legs. Sam swallowed heavily and hesitated on his next step forward.

“Oh, Sammy, Sammy, Sammy,” Lucifer said haltingly, “Father cast me from Heaven, I can’t go back. And Michael would never debase himself by going to Hell, even to cleanse it. A whole garrison descended upon Hell and the highest ranking member was a middle management grunt and he didn’t descend past the outer defenses. Castiel may have been well respected but he was created during the Fall, he is one of the youngest of us.”

“Cas isn’t cannon fodder,” Sam gritted out through clenched teeth.

“I agree, but does he see it that way? Does Heaven see it that way? Look how quickly they tossed him aside,” Lucifer said.

Sam’s eyes narrowed in anger and he opened his mouth to rip the devil a new one.

A gunshot rang across the junkyard.

Sam’s eyes went wide in horror and Lucifer’s manic grin went sad and somber around the edges.

“And that,” Lucifer drawled, “would be my little brother blowing his brains out all over Singer’s living room.”

The Winchester turned around and bolted towards the house. Lucifer watched him go, sighed, and dragged himself to his feet so he that could stumble after his True Vessel.


	2. And So It Begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cas is dead, the world is ending, and Sam takes the least shitty option in the sea of What The Fuck that his life has become.

Bobby was in the door to the living room when Sam skidded in through the kitchen. The expression on his face was grim, brows drawn down in a scowl and lips pursed together until they turned white with the pressure. Sam looked at him and he suddenly knew, he didn’t even have to see to know but he had to see, he wouldn’t believe it otherwise.

Sam paused as Bobby turned his face towards him and shook his head slowly. He moved forward and the older man held up one hand in caution.

“Boy, you don’t need to see this,” Bobby’s voice was sympathetic and Sam didn’t want that.

Sam gritted his teeth and strode forwards anyways. He regretted it almost instantly and the bottom dropped out of his stomach. At least Cas had been neat about his suicide.

The former angel’s body was sitting cross legged on the floor in front of the couch angel blade in one hand, a gun with Dean’s amulet wrapped around it in the other. He’d laid a semi-white sheet across the couch and along the floor to catch the blood and brain matter and slowly cooling grace. There was a hole in the exact center of Cas’s forehead, right above his eyes, his wide blue eyes.

But the worst part was the wings.

Unlike any other angel they had killed or seen dead Castiel’s wings weren’t burned across the sheet behind him. Rivulets of blood were running down his back to pool on the ground around him and under him. The holes in his back where his wings would be if they were physical gaped open, forming meaty red pits that would have drawn the eye if not for what lay on top of the coffee table in front of Castiel.

Two black as ink wings with blue and purple tinting the ends of the flight feathers and were run through with streaks of white  that looked like lightning. One very green patch rested on the upper curve of his left wing. Sam had a feeling that if he checked it against Dean's hand there would be a perfect match.

“How?” Sam asked, fighting back the nausea climbing up his throat.

“I was on the phone with one of the local police departments, I didn’t even notice until he sat down,” Bobby said, “I’m sorry, boy, I would’ve-”

“No, I’m not blaming you. I meant how are his wings corporeal, how did he dig them out? Why would he… Why?” Sam stuttered out.

There was a coughing laugh from behind him and Sam turned to see Lucifer dragging himself through the doorway. The devil leaned against the doorway in what Sam thought was supposed to be a casual lean but just looked like he was trying to hold himself up as his legs began to give out on him. Bobby had his shotgun in his hands and pointed at Lucifer in a second flat.

“Angel feathers are used in quite a few protection spells,” Lucifer croaked and pushed off of the doorframe.

He made his way across the room slowly, painfully slowly until he could see Castiel. He paused right next to Sam and the tall human backed away from him, his body might be failing but he was still an archangel, still more powerful than Cas had ever been and had still been capable of killing his brother. He watched warily as Lucifer’s face fell and his eyes grew even sadder.

“Oh, baby brother,” Lucifer whispered, bareilly loud enough for Sam to hear, “look at what they’ve made of you. Scarred and imperfect but still marked with power. Following our Father’s final command until it killed you.”

Sam decided not to comment as Bobby wheeled himself backwards towards his counter and the angel blade he had in one of the drawers. The scent of the blood was beginning to get overwhelming, growing stronger and more concentration in the confined space of the house.

“Last chance, Sam,” Lucifer spoke louder and turned his head to look up at his Vessel through tired eyes with fire burning in the darkness behind them, “I’ll respect your decision but Michael’s going to be here in a few minutes. He won’t care about collateral and what more do you have to live for anymore? Dean is dead, his angel is dead, my Father isn’t coming, and your surrogate father is going to die of liver disease within the next month. Please, don’t let them win, don’t let me have to prove them right.”

Sam reached behind him and pulled the blade from the back of his jeans in one swift movement. He brought it to Lucifer’s throat and held it there, the tip barely digging into the flesh of his neck. The fallen angel just smiled and chuckled brokenly.

One of his eyes popped and the thick, viscous liquid ran down the Fallen’s cheek in a dribble of clear fluid, boiling as it went. Sam tried to hold back the retching that was trying to work it’s way up his throat.

“Give me one good reason not to kill you,” Sam growled, “You’re the reason we’re all in this mess to begin with.”

Lucifer looked at him with his single eye, smiling sadly, “Sammy-”

“Don’t call me that,” Sam snapped and let the blade dig into the angel’s flesh, blood and grace dribbled down his neck to pool in the dip of his collar bone.

“Sam,” Lucifer sighed, “I’m tired. This is the end, one way or another. You are the one thing my Father ever gave me. I may have been the favorite, I may have loved Him more than anything in existence but He made everything for Himself. My joy, my brothers’ joy, those were side benefits. A superfluous thing that added to the satisfaction of the creation. When I disobeyed he told me of the one soul in all of Creation that would be mine, mine to love, mine to care for, mine to protect. And then, when I still refused to love humanity more than I loved Him, an impossible feet that I would have never been able to accomplish, he cast me out. When Michael threw me in the Cage you were the thing I clung to to keep myself sane once the Fallen had warped too far for them to be able to touch Heaven and their links to me atrophied.”

“So what? I’m a consolation prize?” Sam asked.

“No, Sam, oh no, you’re far more than that,” Lucifer scrambled to say, “You’re a gift, the only gift my Father has ever given me and your world has forced you to deny me. Say yes, Sam. Say yes or let it die, watch it all burn under the fury of two waring archangels.”

Sam searched his eyes, the scent of blood and grace mixing and melding in the air, hitting Sam with another wave of desire. He swallowed the saliva pooling in the back of his mouth and searched Lucifer’s eyes for any hint of a lie.

There wasn’t one.

Dread pooled in the pit of his stomach the Fallen angel was telling the truth or at least what he thought the truth was. Sam took a deep, shaking breath and began to turn the problem of the apocalypse over and over in his brain.

Say yes, give in and destroy the world. Say no, refuse to bend to destiny and spend the next few day, weeks, however long running away, trying to escape, survive, help as many as he could as Michael and Lucifer duked it out in their True Forms. Or…

Or option three, kill the devil right here and now. Watch Lucifer burn out under Gabriel’s blade and take his chances with Heaven’s warriors.

Alright, go back to basics, Sam. Cause and effect.

If he killed Lucifer there would be an explosion of grace that would alert every single angel in existence that the devil was dead. There would be two archangel’s left, both on Heaven’s side, at least one of which was a nihilistic asshole who had exploded Cas. The other angels would follow them like tiny automatons, unaware of what they’re doing and what it actually meant to the humans on Earth.

There were two ways Michael could lean in the outcome of Lucifer’s death. He could return to Heaven to mourn his brother’s death and wait for God’s return.

Or, as above so below, Dean and Sam’s reactions to other people harming their brother was explosive and if they were in point of fact modeled after the two eldest angels then Sam didn’t want to imagine Michael’s reaction to Lucifer dying by a human’s hand.

What would he do? Would he kill Sam? Would he stop at Sam? Or would he go on to take his anger out on the rest of humanity?

Humanity had no heavy hitting allies left Gabriel was dead, Crowley was most likely dead, the pagan gods were dead. Or at least most of them were, Sam had done a bit of research after the stepford santa incident and had discovered a few things.

Gods lived off of belief for the most part with the occasional sacrifice from their followers to supplement their power. The eating of human flesh thing was a last resort option for gods fading from the world with no followers to keep them going anymore. Dying gods with no power, dying a creeping death they could decades in advance. Norse, Indian, Haitian Vodou at least those three were still worshiped, he knew that much. Odin, Baldur, and Ganesh would eventually reform themselves but would they do it in time to help? Could they help?

Lucifer had torn through them like they were nothing more than tissue paper. What would Michael do? What would the rest of the Host? Would they even help people who didn’t worship them?

So option three was out or at least so complicated that Sam didn’t think he would ever be able to deal with the fallout. Was there a fourth option because he didn’t like the other three?

Sam’s eyes fell to Lucifer’s throat and the trail of blood and grace flowing down his throat. It was so so tempting but he dragged his thoughts away from that. Blood was bad, he couldn’t go there again. The downward spiral might actually kill him this time. Demon blood was addictive and the withdrawal had been hell, he had no idea what angel blood would do but he imagined that the withdrawal would be ten times worst, at least.

So his options were bad, worst, and downright awful. How the fuck was he supposed to pick?

And option four was dangling in front of his face like the apple of Eden before Eve. And he realized he was casting himself as the woman in this scenario but he had passed the point of caring a day ago. His give a shit had broken with Deans skull and burned with his brother’s body.

“No,” Sam said with narrowed eyes.

Lucifer sighed, eyes closing and eyebrows furrowing in sorrow, “Alright then, goodbye, Sammy. I’ll see you in… I’ll see you.”

He stepped back, just far enough to pull his throat away from the blade and stumbled, right knee giving out from under him and cracking the kitchen tile under him. He started to glow faintly, the blue light of his grace shining through his skin as it fought to get out.

“Run,” Lucifer choked, “Sammy, run, I can’t-”

Sam felt something inside him die, something that had dinged with Jess, Broken with Dean’s first death, and shattered with the latest. The blankness spread and spread and Sam only remembered feeling like this on The Wednesday, that horrible, horrible day that had last six months. It was cold in his heart and his mind had spiraled into lines of logic that burned as they snaked out along his synapsis.

He felt himself think, ‘Fuck it, it’s the end of the world anyway,’ grabbed Lucifer by the hair and yanked his head up to expose his throat. The Fallen’s remaining eye went wide as Sam stared down at him and then he smiled as Sam drew Gabriel’s blade across his throat.

Blood and grace poured from the wound in the brief seconds before Sam’s mouth latched itself over the liquid.

It was cold, ice cold, burning as it flowed down his throat. It tasted like ash and hope and ice and fire and power and life, life, life. Life beginning, life unending, the source of it all wrapped up in the darkness of sin and shadow and… humanity. The taste was clear and true and Sam hummed in pleasure.

It was nothing like demon blood, nothing like the meat and smoke and hard liquor that had poured down his throat in an unending tide to drown him.

Sam swallowed and swallowed and swallowed until the body in his arms went still and the sound of wings sounded from behind him. There was the crack of a shotgun and then a scream abruptly silenced.

He dropped the body and turned to look as Michael, who was staring at him from beside Bobby’s corpse.


	3. Samuel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Michael's reaction to recent events isn't exactly pleasant. Also, God is a dick.

“Brother?” Michael asked, wings pulled back in shock and fluttering in distress behind him.

They were bigger than Cas’s and a steely grey they reminded Sam of the blade in his hand. They were almost completely blemish free except for one brilliant white line of feathers that ran along the underside of the left wing from the bottom of the middle primaries to the top of the outer most marginal coverts. It looked like someone had tried to cut his wing clean off.

For a second Sam wasn’t quite sure how he knew the white was scaring and then he remembered the grace. The grace that was currently sitting in his stomach and floating upwards to wrap around that spot just behind his heart where Sam thought the soul sat, like a ball of happy warmth. Knowledge and memories were starting to slowly worm their way into his brain, whispering here, presenting a fact there. He still felt like himself with a little power tucked in at the back of his brain, not like the demon blood which had rocketed him to a high that made his head spin.

He felt strong for the first time in months, years, since he died and Dean sold his soul. His brain didn’t hurt, his muscles didn’t ache, and the slow warmth of the grace was spreading through his bones. That was strange, grace burned cold didn’t it?

“Not quite,” Sam said and cocked his head to the right, examining Adam’s body and what he could suddenly see curled up inside Adam’s body. The shining, dazzling being that had to be Michael’s true form, dozens of eyes and three faces, six arms and a whipcord tail with his blade inbedded in the end.

Sam blinked and felt something flutter behind him, he looked up and back. There were two wings the color of spun sunshine stretched up over his head, two whispy white incorporeal wings were curled around his ribs under his arms, and the last two blazed with green fire where they stretched down towards the ground. Hellfire, he registered absentmindedly and looked back up at Michael.

The steel winged angel had backed away from him with a look of pure horror on his faces. The Lion bared its teeth and the Falcon cawed in distress. The humanish one that lay just under Adam’s had a lip that was trembling.

“Huh,” Sam said and turned his head to look at Cas’s body but all he could see was the body and the empty space where something should be, “this is the single most trippiest thing I have ever experienced.”

“What did you do?” Michael asked, the horror in his voice evident, a different voice layered itself over Adam’s, an older voice that Sam recognized on an instinctual level.

“I’m not quite sure,” Sam said and looked at Bobby’s body, the same emptiness was there in Bobby’s chest, just behind his heart, “Why do you only have two wings? Gabriel had six.”

Because Gabriel had had six wings spread in ash across the floor of Elysian Fields when Sam had insisted on going back to retrieve his body. Dean had argued with him the entire way there until they’d gotten into the dining room, they’d both fallen silent then. Dean had whistled at the three massive sets of ash wings and the blade sticking straight out of his chest. Sam had made a little sound in the back of his throat and moved forward to pull the blade out of Gabriel’s body.

He handed the blade to Dean and bent down to pick up Gabriel’s vessel. He’d cradled the archangel to his chest and walked out of the hotel in complete silence, Dean trailing after him, just as quiet.

They’d buried Gabriel instead of burning him, it just seemed like a better idea for some reason. They’d gone to a forest of oak and elm nearby and had gone trudging through until they’d found a clearing full of wildflowers. They’d took turns digging the grave, not deep, they didn’t have time for deep, just enough for the body to rest snuggly in the earth without anything sticking out.

Sam wondered vaguely wondered if the raw earth above his body had sprouted flowers yet. His wings twitched absently, the middle set that was trying to melt into his skin. And he suddenly knew that if he stretched them out he could go back there, visit Gabriel’s grave.

But, no, Michael was here, on Earth, in front of him and he’d have to deal with that archangel first.

“Gabriel was the Messenger. What are you?” Michael hissed, wings going up to mantel in a clear attempt at intimidation.

Sam cocked his head and hummed to himself, the tiny part of him that had been Lucifer whispering in the back of his mind, “Chimera.”

Michael took a step forward and snarled. Sam just looked at him, the treat was there, right in front of him but Sam didn’t feel frightened. He wasn’t quite sure why but it felt like he was staring at a tiger from behind an incredibly high, sturdy fence with barbed wire around the top.

“Abomination,” Michael hissed and his blade flicked from his tail to his hand with a swish that Sam had to follow with his eyes.

Sam snorted in mild irritation at Michael’s narrow minded exclamation because, “Wrong, oh so wrong. I’m exactly what Heaven made me. I might not be what God intended but free will has always been a tricky beast now hasn’t it?”

Michael froze in place for half a second as those words processed, Sam could see visible error messages popping up all over Michael’s multiple heads even if none of it passed across Adam’s face. It was mildly amusing to both sides of Sam, or rather all three sides because he was starting to realize that the creeping sadistic side that he did his best to ignore was a result of the tiny thread of demon blood still in his system. He was pretty sure it had weld itself to his soul at this point.

“Blasphemy,” Michael snarls and lunges.

The second set of wings move almost without Sam telling them to and scooped the air around him, moving him through space faster than any angel could follow. The expression of pure shocked fury on the older angel’s face was priceless in the fraction of the second before Sam vanished from Bobby’s kitchen.

The space between spaces was interesting, a strange blankness that wasn’t blank at all somehow. It was full and empty, light and dark, loud and silent all at once. It was almost too much for the part of him that was completely human to bare, his mind was trying to overload itself on the sensations but the grace and the blood wouldn’t let it, anchored it to the here and now.

He floated there for awhile, wings moving lazily in the faint current that he could feel flowing around what felt like feathers but weren’t. He was trying to get used to it, trying to desensitize his human body to the overwhelming feeling of the inbetween. But he could feel Michael searching through it, trying to find him, his rage distinct enough to resonate along the webwork of power that made up the inbetween.

Sam let his wings move again and slipped into reality once more facing the clearing where he’d buried Gabriel. It was sunny, bright and clear and the sun shone down on the tiny patch of golden wildflowers clumped over the scarred earth. They were an unfamiliar species and it made him pause in indecision as his eyes traced over them.

They were like a combination of lilies and carnations and lavender all at once. It was confusing and their silvery stalks were even more confusing because those flowers weren’t of this planet. Sam could see that and the memory of them somewhere else was vague but there and he couldn’t remember where Lucifer had seen them.

He thought about it for a minute, digging through centuries and millennia of memories until…

Eden.

The place where Lucifer had seen those flowers was Eden. Before Adam, before Eve, before humanity was even a thought in the back of God’s brain, when it was just the archangels and God.

They’d been Gabriel’s favorites until they’d been lost. Lucifer had never forgiven their Father for that, the expression on the youngest archangel’s face when he’d gone looking for the flowers and found them replaced by purple lavender, white lilies, and yellow carnations.

In hindsight that was when Lucifer’s doubt had begun to take root. After all how could their Father be so cruel as to take something away that Gabriel loved so much and not even notice his youngest son’s sorrow. It had made absolutely no sense to the Morning Star, not at the time anyways but it had been the beginning of a pattern that Lucifer had only really begun to notice After. After he snapped, After he rebelled, After he took that one last step and stood against his Father for the first time ever.

But now they were here. Why were they here?

They were a dead flower, a flower that no longer existed because their Father had willed it so and willed others into existence in its place. The sight made Sam twitch and his hands clenched around Gabriel’s blade.

Why here? Why now? Why would there Father do this? Why would He give Gabriel back his favorite flower when he wasn’t even alive to appreciate the sight of it?

“This wasn’t how it was supposed to go, Son,” a voice said from behind him and Sam’s spine went stiff as a board, “He wasn’t supposed to die, not here, not now. He was supposed to be useful a few years down the line but a fraction of a second makes all the distance but no loss. Then, I took my eye off of that little Crossroads Demon and he choked on his own treachery.”

“Useful,” Sam hissed under his breath, “Useful! Is that all he would have been to you, Father?! A useful tool! Is that all we are?!”

Sam whirled around, fury writ large across his face and froze as he took in God in all his glory. It was strange looking at the being that had created it all and see the thousands upon millions upon billions of wings stretching out behind God’s vessel. They were every color of the rainbow and constructed of every single building material known to man. But it was the vessel himself that shook Sam to the bone.

“Chuck?” Sam asked because that was definitely the Prophet dressed in long flowing white robes that looked incredibly jaring and out of place on him.

“Lucifer,” Chuck/God said and nodded as politely as possible, “I am very-”

“Sam,” Sam snapped at the most powerful being in existence, God blinked in confusion, “it’s Sam, Father. Lucifer’s grace might be in here but I am not him. He died twenty minutes ago under Gabriel’s blade.”

There is silence for a few seconds as God appears to bore into Sam with his gaze.

“Huh,” God said under his breath, “Lucifer’s grace should have burned you up from the inside out as soon as it passed your lips. The demon blood in your system should have ensured it. But… Azazel, he was Fallen, I see now. Angel is angel blood no matter how long it’s been tainted by time in the Pit, I did not expect that. I will have to start over.”

“What?” Sam snarled as God got a far off look in his eye that made Sam’s skin crawl.

“This does not appear to be the world where my Sister will emerge, I must move on to the next one,” God explained, waving a hand as if it was perfectly reasonable to abandon a world purely for the fact that his plans had gone slightly off track.

“So you’re just going to abandon this world? Leave it to rot. I thought you cared about humanity. Lucifer thought we were the only thing you loved.” Sam said and backed up a step.

The urge to stab God was almost overwhelming and stabbing the most powerful being in the universe was probably an incredibly bad idea. Suicidal even, and if Lucifer was still in full possession of his body and mind he would have tried it but Sam wasn’t him and if there was any chance of fixing what had gone wrong Sam needed to be on God’s good side. No matter how badly it grated on him, on all his sides.

“Of course not,” God said, “I’m leaving it to you.”

Sam laughed, he didn’t know why he laughed but it wasn’t a pretty sound. It was pretty terrifying actually. Loud and harsh and broken beyond belief. Sam had never really understood Lucifer’s whole deal but now he did, with angel’s memories in his head and his Father standing right in front of him in all his uncaring glory.

“Forgive me, Father. For I have sinned,” Sam spat, letting Lucifer’s bitterness rise in his chest and pore out of his mouth, “I have killed angels and humans and demons. The grace tried to end the world and I set him free from his Cage. He gave Cain Darkness’s Mark and instigated the first murder. I am something the world has never seen before, I am something you never intended. I am what I and the world have made of me and you have already admitted that your plan has gone off the rails to the extreme. Why would you leave a world to an unknown factor that has proven himself to be untrustworthy?”

“Who better? You have the power of all three realms running through your body. The demonic blood of a Fallen, the grace of an angel, and the body and mind of a human. Who else could I leave?” God asked.

“Don’t you care. You cast down your own son for humanity’s sake. Why would you just walk away?” Sam asked, morbid curiosity welling up in his mind.

“My Sister, is lost. I locked Her away and I regret it still. Humans… they were made in our image, they were supposed to fill a void but as I watched I was just reminded of my Sister over and over again. I need her back and this timeline will not give her to me,” God sighed and Sam stared at him in shock.

“Alright then,” he said after a moment of consideration, brain moving at a mile a minute as possibilities spun out in front of him in an unending stream, “then I have permission to do whatever I want with the timeline, no interference, no paradoxes.”

“Of course, this world would be yours, to do with as you wish,” God said.

“And you would go to another timeline, try again there?” Sam asked, following the timeline back to where the world started to fuck itself over, when Sam started drinking demon blood.

“Yes. Yes, I would, there’s nothing for me here,” God remarked and his wings shook themselves out a bit more, expanding impossibly wider.

“Deal,” Sam decided and looked at God with expectant eyes.

God smiled and took a step forward. Sam tried to back up but found he couldn’t move. He couldn’t quite find it in himself to panic either which was a whole new level of confusing in and of itself. Because he really should be panicking, the most powerful being in the universe was walking towards him with a smile on his face after Sam had just agreed to replace him.

Sam was calm, deceptively calm as an apex predator moved towards him. His brain was fighting against whatever was holding it still, the grace in his body pinned under something far more powerful than it could have ever hoped to be. God’s hands framed Sam’s face and brought his head down to lay a kiss on the human’s forehead.

The brief brush of skin against skin was so utterly, freezingly cold that it burned like acid against Sam’s skin. He could feel the power in the kiss press past layers of skin and bone and brain matter until it touched something deeper, the animal thing in the deepest part of his psyche that screamed in fury at the intrusion. It made God chuckle against Sam’s skin and the sound vibrated through all the way to Sam’s bones.

God withdrew after a moment and stepped back but there was still a piece of his power sitting low in Sam’s mind, worming its way down until it touched his grace, whispered something into it that made it calm. And then it was gone between one breath and the next.

“Goodbye, Samuel, and good luck,” God said and vanished into thin air without even a flicker of wings.

Sam stood frozen for a few seconds before slowly sinking down to sit on the ground. That had been confusing, now what was he going to do? But that wasn’t really a question was it, Sam already knew what he had to do and what he was going to do. The only real question left was how.

With a deep breath he stood up, strode over to Gabriel’s grave and gently coaxed the flower out of the earth, being careful not to damage the roots. Once he had it in hand he materialized a flower pot and tucked it into the new soil with soft movements.

Then, pot in hand, he vanished to the sound of Michael’s frustrated screams.


	4. Between

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam ponders his options and realizes that he's going to need a bit of help.

The pocket dimension Sam created for himself was small, comparatively so when he took into account the fact that Gabriel had created an entire alternate United States during the Mystery Spot Incident. It was just a two story house with a backyard and a couple acres of forest.

Sam was sitting in the grass, gazing up at the clear blue sky above him. He had the flower in his lap and he was pondering how he could prevent everything from going so wrong.

Dean had to go to Hell, he knew that, he’d accepted it after a few hours of internal debate and he hated that fact but Dean needed Castiel and Castiel needed Dean. The connection those two had formed during the ascent from Hell was partially necessary to that end or at least it was the fastest way to form that sort of bond Sam could think of without him having to lock the two in a hotel room together with a bed covered in rose petals, two dozen candles, and slow romantic music playing in the background.

Sam’s brother might have been Cas’s mate but he had not been ready for the bisexual freak out when he was in high school and he definitely hadn’t been ready for the interspecies freak out when he realized he was in love with Cas. Dean’s reaction had been exactly the same both times, ignore it until it went away. It had worked neither of those times.

Sam highly doubted that a Dean who’d never even met Cas would be in any ways prepared for angel sex. Sam hadn’t been prepared of what Lucifer remembered of angel sex and he could have done without those images of Michael thank you very much. He knew that people you loved could hurt you like no one else but still.

Sam was getting off track, so Dean needed to go to Hell, even though he didn’t truly deserve it, the pain, the guilt, the festering fury. So Dean had to go to Hell but he couldn’t draw blood, if he drew blood they’d start this whole debacle all over again and that was what Sam was trying to avoid.

Wait a minute, when exactly had the siege of hell started? Cas had never said, none of the angels had mentioned it in fact which was suddenly incredibly suspicious on multiple levels. Sam didn’t blame Cas, the little guy was a soldier, created to obey the commands of his superiors and go to war to fight against the darker side of the world.

Alright, if Sam wanted the apocalypse how would he hide that from his subordinates. The very thought made his skin crawl, he didn’t want to think like Zachariah, if he started doing it on a regular basis he’d just take himself out. He never wanted to be that uncaring, that cold towards humanity.

Starting the siege too late would be suspicious, if they started it after Dean had broken and drawn blood then something would have definitely pinged on someone’s radar as weird. Granted angels tended towards oblivious as exemplified by the whole den of iniquity incident that Sam had laughed at Dean for but that was just so obvious that Sam feared for the fate of angel kind if no one had caught on to that level of overt planning.

So they had to have started the siege before the fourth month but if they started it too early then they ran the risk of one of the angels managing to break through the demon’s line and getting Dean out too soon. They would have either had to stall or start later than would have made sense from a strategic standpoint.

Sam was going to place his bet on a combination of the two. This would be so much easier if he could just look back along the timeline without fucking with anything but Sam knew himself too well. If he dove in without a solid plan he’d just end up doing things without thinking everything through and that would end incredibly poorly.

What he probably needed to do was stay in Hell from the moment Dean was dragged down. It would be torture to watch his brother being steadily and systematically broken into tiny Dean shaped pieces but he’d have to do it to ensure he caught Castiel the moment he entered Hell and could drag the angel to Dean’s wrack.

That was Dean sorted out, the first seal unbroken but more importantly Dean unbroken. But there was still Sam’s past self and Ruby and the demon blood that she’d poisoned him with.

It had tainted the Fallen blood that already coursed through his veins, turned it from a part of him into an addiction, a crutch. It made the power he held turn on him, rip itself to shreds and imbed those shards in his brain.

Ruby had showed up at one of his lowest points, swooped in and appeared to save him from himself. She’d wound him up over Lilith, higher and higher and higher until all Sam could see was the red of Lilith’s blood spilled over those ridiculous white dresses of hers. Then she’d handed what seemed like a perfectly reasonable solution to the angry dog that had taken over Sam’s mind, dosed him up, and watched him go.

The addiction would crack his past self’s relationship with Dean, it didn’t matter if Dean hadn’t broken under Alistair’s whip, Dean hated demons with a passion, not quite to the level of witches but it was up their. The break wouldn’t be as bad and if the first seal didn't break and Sam couldn’t break the last without completely fucking up everyone’s plans but Sam was trying to improve everyone’s position and the demon blood addiction was completely unnecessary for Sam’s new, improved timeline plan.

How would hae stop the addiction if he was down in Hell, watching Dean? He needed help, he needed someone else on his side. But who would be willing to help.

Not Bobby. Bobby would help but Bobby had already tried to help in the other timeline and that hadn’t worked at all the last time. Bringing him in might actually make things worse than they already were, Sam’s rebellious streak hadn’t really died out in high school, like most teenagers’ did.

Gabriel? No, that wouldn’t end well for anyone involved. The last time Past Sam would have seen Gabriel would have been at the Mystery Spot on that fateful Wednesday and Sam hadn’t truly realized what Gabriel had been trying to do until TV Land. Sam would probably just try to stake him again.

Maybe if Sam sent a woman to his past self he’d react more positively.

Jo? No, Ellen would kill him or, worst, she wouldn’t kill him. Woman got creative when they were pissed off, there was a reason Lilith had been the first one Lucifer had twisted up into a demon.

Ellen wouldn’t be able to do jack shit. She had the bar to run and Past Sam probably wouldn’t be as receptive to a motherly boot to the ass as Sam would hope.

Who else was there? No one alive that he knew of but Sam was an angel now wasn’t he, or close enough to count. He could pull someone from Heaven.

But who, who was important enough to both him and his past self to be willing to help. The list was still tragically short: Andy, Dad, Jess…

Jess.

Jess. What if he could resurrect Jess? What if he could bring her back?

She probably wouldn’t be able to deal with the fact that he was a Chimera but she would probably be able to deal with Past Sam being a hunter. She’d been into mythology and she’d dealt with the knives and books and salt lines.

Jess had had wiccan friends and heathen friends, people who Sam knew knew about, at the very least, gods and magic. The one Frigga’s woman friend of hers had taken one look at him and gone vaguely pale before getting him alone and promising him her patron goddess wasn’t one of the ones that ate human flesh.

So it was very likely that telling her that the supernatural was real, followed by a brief demonstration wouldn’t result in screaming histarics. At least he hoped it wouldn’t and he could keep her in this pocket dimension to train and let her warm up to the idea of being alive and having to save her hunter boyfriend.

He’d have to get Ruby out of the equation though, if Past Sam had already latched onto Ruby as a companion then she would do everything in her power to get Jess out of the picture and her disappearance would cause him to react badly. So she’d have to be taken out before she could save Sam from those demons.

Jess would either have to take her place and save Sam instead of Ruby or show up earlier and, oh, oh that was the perfect opportunity. If he dropped Jess off right as Dean was being ripped apart from those demons she could sneak up behind Lilith and stab the bitch through the spine.

But, if that happened, would heaven even bother sending angels down to rescue Dean from Hell.

Sam groaned and flopped backwards onto the grass so that he could stare up at the single cloud working its way across the sky. Jess would just have to replace Ruby before the she bitch had a chance to sink her claws into Sam, that should be easy enough, he just needed to remember the location of one of the crossroads he had used and plop her down there to intercept Past Sam before he could bury the box. It would have to be one of the later ones but Sam could manage that.

Wait, Past Sam probably wasn’t going to react favorably to his very dead girlfriend suddenly appearing out of nowhere to interrupt his attempts to resurrect Dean. he’d probably shoot her on sight, thinking she was a shapeshifter or a demon or a trickster.

Damn it all. Why was this so difficult?

Okay, so Jess couldn’t outright reveal herself, at least not right away. She’d have to hide her identity, earn Sam’s trust before revealing who she really was, if she ever could. Could he do that to her?

Could Sam in good conscience pull Jess from Heaven, from what he assumed were happy memories, reveal a fact of life that no one truly wanted to find out, train her to fight all the darkness in the world, and then set her down on earth to save past him and not give her the opportunity to have the happy reunion she deserved? She would be distraught, she’d cry and scream and be miserable beyond belief.

He didn’t want to do that to her, not without her full, informed consent. But if he told her what he needed her to do, what she would be sacrificing, what she’d have right in front of her face without the opportunity to reveal that she was alive would she do it?

Would she sacrifice her own happiness to save the world? To save Sam?

Yes. The answer was most likely yes. Jess had always been wrapped up in Sam from the instant they met, an instant connection that had hit them both like a punch in the gut.

It wasn’t lust, Sam had experienced instant lust before and knew to be suspicious of it. Too many supernatural creatures used lust to tempt their prey into their clutches, sirens, mermaids, succubi, just to name a few. The connection was more mental, they clicked in that way some people just do.

Sam’s girlfriend at the time, the most wonder bread of all the church girls on campus, hadn’t taken too kindly to the mythology debate they had gotten into over copies of the Poetic Edda. She’d taken offense to Jess’s everything and proceeded to show the more nasty side of her personality that Sam hadn’t witnessed until that point.

Sam took a deep breath and sighed. He was about to regret everything he’d ever done to lead up to this point. He hated seeing Jessica unhappy, he’d never been able watch her cry without panicking and that one time she’d spent two hours just staring at the ceiling after she’d caught her boyfriend cheating had made him want to give her everything short of Dean’s soul to stop her from looking like a corpse.

If she said yes, that stopped the demon blood and Dean was out of Hell. Who was still on the board, still playing the game?

Ruby, depending on whether or not Jess took her out at the first opportunity. Lilith, who Sam was going to take out himself as soon as Cas had Dean’s soul in his grasp or maybe he’d tell Jess to go for it as soon as Heaven started their siege. They couldn’t stop once it had started after all. Alistair, as soon as Dean was safe Sam was going to rip that little shit to shreds, no one hurt Dean, no one.

That was Hell’s side of things. All those demons would be an easy kill, a quick thrust of a blade and all those power players would be gone in an instant. Dean would be safe from Hell’s machinations, his past self would be safe from Hell’s machinations. But Hell wasn’t really the problem here now was it?

Heaven was the real problem when it came down to it, they were the ones engineering the apocalypse after all and that list was a bit more complicated. He didn’t honestly want to kill Michael and while Sam would love to pull Raphael’s wings off like a kid with a spider he didn’t think he’d manage to do so.

At least Zachariah wouldn’t be all that big of a problem, that asshole wasn’t much more than a middle management today. Uriel would have to go too, even Lucifer hadn’t approved of the slaughter of the angel’s own garrison. But what to do about Annael, she was fine until she’d decided to try and kill Sam before he was born.

She’d also slept with Dean but Sam couldn’t allow that to happen because it would drive a wedge between Dean and Cas. Sam would not let that happen, those two needed to get their act together this time or both Sams might end up bursting a blood vessel. The sexual tension had been bad while the apocalypse was happening, he dreaded to think how thick it would be when those two had time to be around each other more.

The search for God wouldn’t be going on either, not if Sam had anything to say about it. God was actually gone this time, torturing Cas with that particular carrotless stick was just plain cruel.

The easiest way to fix that would be to kill Anna, but Sam had liked her before she’d tried to murder him and she’d been the one to deal with Uriel last time around. He could keep her grace away from her instead but she’d still end up going after Dean if that happened. He needed to keep her away from Dean all together, at least until Cas had made a move.

Sam rubbed at his forehead, if he wasn’t pumped full of grace at the moment he’d probably be getting a headache right about now. And he hadn’t even considered what he was going to do about the fact that his grace felt like it belonged to Lucifer.

Oh fuck, what was he going to do about Lucifer?

Sam groaned, he was considering just letting that lie until it became a problem but that was never a brilliant plan. Besides, Sam remembered the Cage now, remembered what it had been like for Lucifer.

He felt Michael’s betrayal like a scar running along Lucifer’s grace and the despair of his Father not even bothering to show up for his sentencing. The other angel’s wary, hateful gazes were still fresh in his mind, hearing their scathing words like they were still in front of him.

The monotony of the Cage was worst, the only voices he could hear were those of his Fallen who disappeared. They were either lost to humanity or killed until it was only Azazel left and Azazel had never been particularly stable to begin with. And then Lucifer had been alone in the silence, in his own head for hundreds of thousands of years with only the screams of the damned to keep him company. If all Sam saw of humanity was Hell he’d hate humans too.

Sam wondered if he’d have a connection to Lucifer when he traveled back in time. That would have to go on the back burner though, he was almost confident he could break the devil out of the freezer if he had to but he honestly didn’t know if Lucifer had actually wanted to start the apocalypse or if he’d just been backed into a corner.

He’d deal with Jess first, then worry about everything else.


	5. Jessica

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heaven isn't all it's cracked up to be and Sam gets a new name.

Jessica was reading a book on early depictions of angels with her back against Sam’s chest and her legs kicked up on the arm of the couch when the knock on the door came. She blinked as the sharp rap on the door rang through the apartment and set down her cup of hot chocolate.

No one had knocked on the door before, not since… Jess didn’t know, her brain fogged up when she thought of anything past what had happened ten minutes ago but she was almost sure no one had knocked on the door in a very long time and she wasn’t expecting anyone. Brady was off getting laid and Carol was doing a weird Samhain ritual involving warding off negative spirits, none of their other friends were in town.

Or, at least, Jess didn’t think any of their other friends were in town.

Jessica sighed and pulled herself to her feet, Sam grumbled for a second before going back to his nap. Jess smiled and tucked her blanket in around him to keep him warm. Normally he’d have woken up before whoever it was was anywhere near their door but he was exhausted from the all nighter he’d pulled yesterday.

With a quick glance back at Sam Jess tiptoed to the door and opened it as silently as possible, the hinges had a tendency to squeak if she wasn’t careful. Sam stayed asleep and Jessica sighed in relief as she opened the door all the way.

“Hello, can I hel-” Jessica stopped as she finally registered who was standing in her doorway.

It was Sam. Or rather a version of Sam, older than the Sam on the couch with longer hair and tired eyes that seemed to look into her very soul. He looked tired and sad and just that tiny bit broken.

And he had wings, six of them. Golden and white and blazingly green, curled around him like they were trying to shield him from something.

“What?” Jessica asked as she stared at him in amazement and then she was struggling to breath.

Brady had come to the apartment. He was supposed to be on a date with his newest conquest “this could be the one,” he’d said. He’d acted upset, she’d assumed he’d been stood up.

She’d let him in, dear gods she’d let him in, his eyes had gone black, like endless pools of darkness.

And then pain.

Jessica fell to her knees, struggling to breath past the pain she could feel in her chest, the pain that shouldn’t be there but she could feel anyway because Brady had stabbed her right through the gut and laughed while she’d struggled to breath past the pain.

And she’d been pinned to the ceiling like a bug on a wall and then Sam, oh gods Sam’s face as he’d stared up at her, as the fire had begun to consume her.

Her hands came up to cover her mouth, to hold back the scream building in her throat, clawing its way up her throat as the despair hit her all at once. She was dead. She was dead and Brady or whoever, whatever the fuck he was had killed her and Sam had watched her burn. Just like his mother had.

“I’m sorry about that, but I thought it was best to just rip it off like a bandaid,” Sam’s voice said from above her but that couldn’t be Sam and what dared to steal his face.

Her head snapped up and her blue eyes blazing in fury at the being looking down at her with Sam’s sad eyes. It was strange looking at an expression she’d almost never seen on his face paired with the faint silver glow that shone just behind those hazel eyes.

“Don’t, you dare,” Jessica growled as she rose to her feet, “Don’t you dare come to me wearing his face like it belongs to you. Who are you?”

Sam’s face smiled at her, a full toothed smile that revealed two rows of perfectly pointed, perfectly white teeth. It made her shiver, not in fear, not in anger, up with an unease that came with knowing this wasn’t Sam looking at her. He just looked so sad, it was disturbing.

“Hmm, Chimera would work I suppose,” the thing wearing Sam’s face mused, “And I can’t really wear any other face, I haven’t figured out how to do that yet.”

“Then, stow the teeth, asshole,” Jessica snapped and the thing laughed.

“I forgot how much fire you had in you,” Chimera mused as his teeth changed shaped, smoothing out into a more human appearance, “I need your help, Jessica Moore.”

“How could you want my help? I’m dead,” Jessica pointed out, the irritation in her voice coming through loud and clear.

“Five years ago you died and Sam went off with his brother because he didn’t have anything left here. He went with his brother and died two years later, blade through the spine,” Jessica took a step away from his words, “Dean made a devil’s bargain, his soul for Sam’s life. He was torn apart by hellhounds a year later and dragged to Hell, four months after that he came back.”

“How?!” Jessica asked because Hell sounded pretty permanent from what she’d read of it.

“The angels lay siege to Hell for as he breaks so shall it break and once the righteous man sheds blood in Hell the apocalypse begins,” the creature in front of her said calmly.

“Excuse me,” Jessica gasped past her shock, “I could have sworn you just implied that the apocalypse was  _ already _ under way. How am I supposed to help with that?”

“Not anymore but it will be if I can’t fix it. I need you to keep Sam sane while I deal with the angels,” he said.

“What?” she asked, blinking rapidly at that comment.

“There’s a demon named Ruby who promised Sam strength, power, the ability to kill the demon in charge of Dean’s contract. And she did so, by feeding him demon blood.”

“That… doesn’t sound healthy.”

“No, it’s not. It’s an addictive substance actually. Tell me, do you know who Azazel is?” Chimera asked and cocked his head to the side.

“Azazel?” Jessica asked, the name sounded vaguely familiar, “Isn’t he one of the Fallen? His name means god strengthens.”

“Yes, it does and when Sam was six months old Azazel fed him a few drops of his blood. That’s the only reason Sam survived the first few doses of demon blood. But angel blood is angel blood no matter how badly it’s tainted and the demon blood warped that, twisted it until poor Sammy played right into Ruby’s hands and popped open the last lock to Lucifer’s Cage.”

“And the devil walked free,” Jessica whispered as her brain began to shake itself further out of the happy fog it had been sitting in.

Sam must have been so guilty about that, he must have beat himself up over it every single day. And this Ruby bitch had caused that, made Sam feel worthless and helpless and so alone that he’d turn to a demon for help. Jessica could not, would not allow that to happen.

“How do I help? You said he went down that path because Dean was dead, how long does it take for the angels to resurrect him?”

“Always so smart,” Chimera’s voice sounded almost wistful, “Four months, I’m hoping to cut it down to less than three. Time moves differently in Hell, every month was ten years and Dean broke in the thirtieth year.”

“Why not pull him out yourself?” Jessica asked.

“Ah, well, there a little angel who needs that connection and I would not dream of taking that chance from him,” Chimera hummed.

“So you’re playing matchmaker. How do I help with Sam?” Jessica asked.

“There is the difficult question. You’ll need to earn his trust, keep him away from Ruby, keep him anchored but Sam’s a hunter you see, if you just show up out of the blue he’ll think your a trick,” Chimera said.

“I can’t tell him who I am,” Jessica breathed.

Could she do that? Could she walk up to Sam and know him and not have him know her? Protect him and keep him sane and be so close but so far from him? Could she be with him but not with him all at once?

Jessica turned to gaze back at the couch where the illusion of Sam flickered against the cushions. He looked so peaceful, so happy, so relaxed but he wasn’t real. Sam was alive and she wasn’t and he was about to go through one of the worst days of his life. She had no doubt that Sam had been right next to Dean while he’d been torn up, that was just how Sam was.

So the question wasn’t really could she do this? It was could she afford not to? Could she live, exist with herself if she didn’t?

No. The answer was no. No, she wouldn’t do that and no she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t exist with herself knowing that she had let Sam do that to himself, that she had let Ruby do that to him.

She loved Sam, more than anything and she would do anything for him, even this, even though it was going to hurt like nothing else.

“Fine,” Jessica said, making up her mind and turning back to Chimera, “How do I come back? How do I keep Sam from Ruby?”

“Training, I’m going to train you to hunt, to kill, to survive in Sam’s world,” Chimera said, “I’m going to turn you into a Winchester, a boogey man of the supernatural world. Take that fire and hold it close, teach you to bend natural magic to your will. And then I’m going to let you go to Sam and let you hunt with him. Kill Ruby if you can but don’t ever leave her alone with Sam.”

“And I’ll have to hide my face,” Jessica noted, “my mask had better be a gorgeous piece of craftsmanship. And I’ve always wanted red hair, Sam’s only ever seen me as a blonde, that should throw him off the scent.”

Chimera blinked, a look of not quite shock passing across his face and leaving in a bare second of emotion. Like he wasn’t surprised but he was surprised that he wasn’t surprised.

“All in then?” he asked with a sad smile on his face.

“All in,” Jessica said, spine straightening until she can feel the muscles in her back unclench for the first time in a while.

Chimera’s mouth twitched up at the corner and then his head snapped around to look at something over his shoulder, “Good because we need to leave now.”

And Jess could suddenly feel it, something angry off in the distance. Something frustrated and powerful and oppressively sure of itself. She frowned in mild confusion as Chimera reached out towards her with one hand, one claw tipped hand.

Jessica’s eyebrow went up making the being in front of her chuckle before his claws melted back into normal human fingernails. Fingernails that were jet black for some reason, which made her roll her eyes as she placed her palm in his.

“You’re doing that on purpose,” Jessica said as she examined his hand.

“Oh?” Chimera asked, sounding incredibly amused.

Jessica narrowed her eyes at him as the world bent around them. It was nauseating but Jessica was a medical student, if she hadn’t had a strong stomach she wouldn’t have made it as far as she had. She stayed upright while her body tried to turn itself inside out, eyes never wavering from Chimera’s own eyes. She heard what sounded like a frustrated scream and then they were suddenly in a sunny backyard, standing next to a low porch.

“You’re trying to spook me,” she said, deliberately enunciating every single word in an attempt to keep herself from wavering, “Why?”

“Not everything is as it seems, Jessica Moore, I’m just trying to get you used to the supernatural,” he told her and her eyes narrowed even further.

There was a lie in there somewhere, or at least not the full truth. She opened her mouth but before she could voice her immediate reaction of “bull shit” the brunette being in front of her turned and trotted up the porch steps. She watched him walk across the oak planks to a low table with a pot sat in the center. There were three golden flowers in the pot with silver stems and he touched them with such reverence that it made Jess feel vaguely like a voyeur.

“So, am I alive again or am I standing here all incorporeal like a ghost?” Jess asked after Chimera had drawn his hand away from the flowers.

“Oh no, you have a body now, the same face, different hair though. You said you wanted red after all and this is more efficient than dye,” the being said eyes turning cat gold and pupils slitting like a snakes.

He moved towards the house and opened the sliding door without even touching it before moving inside. Jessica followed him inside, legs trembling slightly, weak as a newborn colts but she fought through the muscle strain. It was annoying but better than the weird floaty feeling that had occupied her limbs while she was in Heaven. Idly she reached up to pull forward a lock of hair, still drawn into a low ponytail at the base of her skull.

It was red, not copper or strawberry blonde but blood red, like spilled wine on white sheets. It surprised her for a second and then she grinned in simple, sweet happiness. Because Chimera had done nothing but try to push her away from him and protect her from himself, drive her to anger and rage, try to get her to hurt him.

But he’d still given her red hair, the exact shade of red that she’d always wanted, that she could never get from a bottle. Her hair had never been able to hold dye and she felt something click into place, she wasn’t quite sure what but it felt vaguely like a puzzle piece slipping into an incomplete picture.

Jess hummed and tossed the lock back over her shoulder. She followed Chimera into the homely kitchen that lay behind the sliding glass door. He was cooking something that smelled utterly delicious, all savory meaty goodness and sharp salty tang.

Seeing Sam, or at least something that looked like Sam, cooking made her smile, Sam didn’t cook often. He’d said he’d never really learned to do more than boil water and microwave leftovers because Dean was the one who did all the cooking while they were kids but what he did now how to make was amazing.

From the look of the pan she was going to guess bacon and sausage and there was a bowl of pancake batter on the table rich with pomegranate seeds. He’s making breakfast and she knew he shouldn’t know that she liked pomegranate seed pancakes. Another piece clicked into place but Chimera was a powerful supernatural creature, he could have just plucked the information out of her head like he’d plucked her out of heaven.

Jessica decided to ignore the picture slowly forming in her mind for the moment because she was hungry and someone who looked like Sam was cooking and it really didn’t matter. Actually it did but she didn’t particularly like the implications of the picture her mind was putting together.

And as she shoves it away she can feel more and more pieces clicking into place until the picture was just out of sight.


	6. Training

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jessica's training montage.

Jessica has exactly one day to get used to being alive again, to get used to weaker muscles and new bones, to sleep and eat and make her body strong again. She sleeps a bit more than she normally would and explored the house. There was a library on the second floor she had lost herself in for a few hours before her bladder abruptly informed her that it was awake and wanted her attention.

As soon as she left the bathroom Chimera had been there wearing a set of jogging clothes and another set in hand. Jessica would bet that they were in her size and a feeling of dread began to pool in the pit of her stomach.

“Oh, please God no,” Jessica moaned, she’d never been much of an exercise freak, not like Sam had been for freshman year and the first half of sophomore year and her muscles still hurt when she walked too far.

“Wrong celestial being,” Chimera said with a small secretive smile that pisses Jess off, not only because of the smugness but also because of the two fangs protruding from where his canines should be.

Her eyes narrowed and she snatched the clothes out of Chimera’s hands. She stomped back into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. The clothes fit her perfectly, damn him for that.

And then she noticed the tramp stamp in the mirror and tried not to scream in furry.

“Why do we have to do this so soon?” Jessica asked as she left the bathroom for the second time in the white shorts and black tank top, “And what the everloving hell is with the body art?!”

“Anti-possession tattoo,” Chimera drawled and herded her down the hall towards an open door where Jessica could see the silvery sheen of mirrors, “and you know the answer to that first question.”

“I’m going to hate you, aren’t I?” Jessica asked as she passed through the door and took in what looked like a combination dance studio and fighting gym.

There was a punching bag and mats on one side of the room and a ballet bar running along the wall on the other side of the room. The floor was a smooth black hardwood that was polished so well that it was like a mirror, Jess could almost see her face in the finish.

Chimera had an incredibly sad look on his face as he smiled at her through the mirrors’ glass, “Yeah, you probably will, won’t you?”

_ Click _ .

Well, shit. Jessica narrowed her eyes at Chimera in the mirror, at Sam. Her beautiful, intelligent, caring Sam that was trying so hard to make her hate him. Or at the very least dislike him. What had happened to him? What had turned him into this?

Desperation, it had to be. She’d never really seen Sam truly desperate but she’d seen glimpses of it that one time a former girlfriend had been assaulted on campus. It was scary, he got cold and hard and vicious in a way that most people would never even guess he was capable of. There was a predator under all that floppy puppy hair and a behind those big hazel eyes.

A monster that once awakened would not rest until the threat to its family was dealt with. She’d seen it stir before and it had made her feel safe when she’d seen it. The girlfriend, a sweet, spunky art major who painted scenes that tended towards dark on her good days, couldn’t deal with the beast that lay under Sam’s skin. They’d stayed friends though and she ended up marrying a nice theater student who made Sam squint for a few minutes before he’d gotten a seal of approval.

Jess was slightly unnerved by the fully realized image of Sam’s feral side but the fact that this was Sam and not just something wearing his face made her relax almost instantly. Not visibly, she wasn’t an idiot. Sam obviously didn’t want her to know who he was or he would have mentioned it by now and he was setting her up to go rescue his past self.

That meant that the Sam she was going to rescue still loved her and this one didn’t or this Sam didn’t think she’d be able to cope with his new nature. And then there were the flowers. Who were those for? Who had given them to him or who was he giving them to?

The look on Sam’s face had been far too intimate for that person to be less than family or a lover. The only two people left in Sam’s family were Dean and his father and you didn’t get flowers, living flowers for men you were related to, especially those two men. They had to be hunters too and normal hunters were such shining examples of healthy masculinity.

So, this Sam was in love with someone else but past Sam might not be. Jessica wanted to sigh in irritation but just as she was about to open her mouth Sam’s, no Chimera’s teeth shifted again, back to the freaky shark teeth, and she felt her eyebrow twitch.

She was going to have to shift her mind away from thinking of Chimera as Sam or she was going to end up fucking up the name. Because this wasn’t her Sam anymore and she had a feeling he never would be again. He still loved her, that much was obvious but she had a feeling he wasn’t in love with her anymore and there was another version of Sam waiting for her in the past. That Sam was the one that was important, the one she’d need to focus on if she was going to survive this.

Chimera had someone else waiting for him in the past and she could deal with that, it was enough to know that he was alive and relatively healthy. But why the wings? Why all the strange power that Jessica was sure he hadn’t had before?

“Alright,” Chimera said as they got to the middle of the dance side of the room, “We’re going to start with stretches, move into muscular fitness, go for a jog, then work on your flexibility. After lunch we’re going to move onto the more mental stuff. Signs to look for when hunting, strengths and weaknesses, stuff like that. In a few weeks we’ll be moving onto tracking, fighting, and stealth.”

“I’m going to regret my entire life in a bit aren’t I?” Jessica asked.

Chimera grinned at her with those shark’s teeth and she felt her heart sink.

A full hour of push-ups, crunches, squats, burpees, planks, leg lifts, v-sits, pyramid push ups, and vertical sit-ups - which Jess hadn’t even known were thing DEAR GOD WHY? - Chimera nodded in approval and let her do her cool down stretches. Then, he gave her water and let her sprawl on the ground for a few minutes while he checked something on the clipboard he had with him.

“You did better than I thought you would,” he said, sounding vaguely pleased with himself.

Jessica couldn’t even muster the energy to glare at him, her neck just flopped to the side so that she could look at him, “I don’t know if I should take that as a compliment or not. I think you fucked with my body, I couldn’t do most of that when I was a on the track team.”

“Just enough to wake up your muscles and keep them going,” Chimera said with a shrug, “that’ll be easing off as you start to get stronger so don’t use it as a crutch. Knowing your body’s limits is part of being a hunter.”

“But not part of being a Winchester?” Jess puffed out.

Chimera grinned at him, “No, part of being a Winchester is exceeding them, and coming back from the dead but you’ve already got that covered.”

“I hate you.”

“So soon? Now get up, we’ve got a jog to go on,” Chimera said.

The jog was at least bearable, Chimera didn’t push her past her limit and while it took Jess a bit to find that steady rhythm she’d managed to work her body into in high school she did find it and it felt a bit like coming home. It cleared her head of the last of the happy bliss of heaven and the beginnings of the tension buzz from the muscle routine.

The flexibility work out was not as peaceful. Chimera almost went as far as twisting her up into a pretzel, making her do things that she’d only seen some of the dance majors on campus even attempt much less pull off. It hurt, it was stressful, and it made Jessica want to scream in fury when she couldn’t make a certain stretch. The disappointed look on Chimera’s stupid face was awful, she felt like she was kicking a puppy the entire time.

“That could have gone better,” he commented when they were done, “We’re just going to have to work on it more than I thought.”

Jessica really did have the energy to glare at him this time and she did so. She didn’t think it could be all that impressive given the chuckle it caused but it made her feel better.

“What? No, magical stretchy help for my ligaments?” Jessica snapped at him.

“No,” Chimera said, “that would screw with your body too much. Your ligaments are too tight for me to do anything without it accidentally dislocating something. You were dead a day and a half ago if you’ll recall.”

“Can we just have lunch then?” Jessica asked with a huff, her stomach growling in emphasis.

Lunch was big, which was good because Jess was ravenous. She devoured what was on her plate and went back for seconds, not particularly caring that the meal held perhaps a bit too much meat for her normal tastes. It was all fantastic but that could just be her stomach talking. Then again it was Sam doing the cooking, the food would have been awesome even if she wasn’t gorging due to her stomach trying to eat itself.

Chimera watched her with soft eyes while he thought when wasn’t looking. Gone were the golden eyes and the hazel was back, the glow behind them stronger than before. He looked happy, or at least the very least content and that soothed something in Jessica’s mind.

“Done?” Chimera asked once Jessica had sprawled herself over the tabletop, feeling vaguely nauseous.

“Mmmm, food comma,” she said, sleepy warmth creeping up her limbs to coil around her brain.

“I think we can work an hour long nap into the schedule,” Chimera told her and waved her towards the couch.

The couch was awesome, soft and cushy and it smelled like Sam. She dropped off to sleep almost right away and fell into a darkness that she couldn’t have drag herself out of even if she’d tried.

She woke up warm with a blanket thrown over her shoulders and a velvety throw pillow under her head. She’s comfortable for all of ten seconds before her body decides now was the time to remind her that she’d just spent all morning doing more exercise than she was accustomed to.

Jessica whined and then sat up to look around. Chimera was sitting on the floor nearby with a notebook in his lap and a few books sprawled out around him in a fan pattern. His eyes moved rapidly over the pages as his hand made careful notes across the page of his notebook.

“Have a nice nap?” he asked and turned one of the pages in front of him, “You’ve only been asleep half an hour, in case you were curious.”

“Yeah, everything hurts but I feel better than I did this morning,” Jess said and it was true.

She’d woken up that morning feeling like death warmed over, which she was. It was probably a side effect of being alive again. Her entire being starting to really kick start itself in the night, sleep seeming to have reset her biorhythm. It had sucked and she’d ended up camping out in the bathroom, worshiping the porcelain throne for a good half hour.

“What’s our first lesson?” she asked after a second, cocked her head to one side and looked Chimera over with curious eyes.

“Women in white,” Chimera said and set his notebook down, “they’re a type of ghost.”

The lesson lasted about an hour and a half before Jessica had a somewhat basic grasp on the women in white concept and ghosts in general. Granted most of that time was Jessica asking questions that made Chimera twitch in irritation or fumble for answers that weren’t just ‘because that’s how it works’.

Finally, Chimera sighed and just picked up a book from his pile, it was smaller than the others, the size of a drug store paperback rather than an ancient tome of infinite wisdom. It had two very pretty men on the cover, one of whom was shirtless. Jessica squinted at it in dubious interest.

“Did you just hand me porn?” She asked and sat back to watch Chimera splutter in utter indignation.

It was hilarious, he made almost the exact same face when she’d asked him if he was a satanist. Granted she wouldn’t put either past him but at the time she’d been genuinely curious and right now she was just being a bitch. He could deal with a little embarrassment, she was dealing with stiff muscles that screamed at her about being overworked.

“No,” Chimera said after he’d composed himself, “that is a book written by a prophet, it’s about actual events that took place about four and a half years ago. It’s a series and the first one’s about a woman in white.”

Jessica shrugged and cracked the book open. Chimera went back to his reading and silence filled the room for a few minutes.

_ ‘“Dad’s on a hunting trip and he hasn’t been home in a couple of days,” Dean said.’ _

“Oh, fuck me,” Jessica said as those words sank in.

Chimera looked up at her with sad eyes as she slowly shook apart on the couch. The book fell from her hands to hit the floor with a soft thump. Tears began to well up in her eyes, there was someone out there writing about Sam’s life and selling it for profit. People were reading about Sam’s pain, his life, her death for entertainment.

She felt her fists bunch in the blanket she had moved to her lap. She was furious, not mad, not angry but nail spitting, fire breathing furious in a way she had never been before. The first thing she was going to do when she met this Carver Edlund was deck him because prophet or no prophet no one got to do that to her or Sam.

“How many?” She hissed through clenched teeth.

“I don’t know, at least twenty, he was quite prolific,” Chimera commented.

Jessica took a deep breath and let it out slowly, “Give them to me.”

Chimera did.

 

~*****~

 

Two days later the flexibility training turned into dance lessons that were a lot like fighting. It came surprisingly naturally after the first few minutes and Jessica suspected more celestial interference.

“No, really, I don’t want to hurt you,” Jess bounced back and forth on the balls of her feet.

“You’re not going to be able to.”

Three days after that the morning workout turned into a more equal balance of cardio and aerobics that suited Jessica far more naturally than the beginning set up. And the afternoons got an extra class in magic training.

“This is boring.”

“Well, we could always do it the easy way.”

“Fuck off. I’m doing this right or not at all.”

They continued like that for a while, mornings full of exercise and afternoons with magic and books and knowledge Jessica had never known she needed. Days blurred together and Jessica was almost certain that they were living on something similar to a sixteen hour day rather than a twenty-four hour day. Every seventh day was a rest day, which Jess needed desperately and resulted in her reading the entirety of the Supernatural series, which went all the way up to Dean’s trip to hell and then stopped.

She was still indignant over Route 666 and Heart, those books were full frontal and it wasn’t even good full frontal at that. While she was glad Sam had found someone that liked him and wanted him she was guiltily glad the woman had turned out to be a werewolf. She didn’t didn’t think she would have been able to hold herself back from punching the other woman in the face.

“Seriously, has the man never heard of privacy.”

“He thought they were fake, Jess.”

Four or five cycles in, Jess had lost count at some point Chimera had pressed two silvery knives into her hands. Celestial Steel he’d called it, rare and capable of killing almost anything. A day after that he’d given her a gun and taught her how to shoot.

Crossbow, flamethrower, sword, gun, knives. She learned them all to perfection, Chimera not satisfied until she could use them all as well as any master.

Jessica built muscle, not body building weight but the lean muscle, dancer’s muscles. She could twist her body into a pretzel and contort herself to fit through spaces she’d have never thought of getting through before. Her mind was sharper too, a combination of the new knowledge she’d gained and the meditation that was necessary for learning magic the hard way.

One day after the twentieth, or was it twenty-fifth cycle, Chimera had called a halt to their spar while Jessica was recovering from a particularly inspired attack against Sam’s defenses and took her on a hunt.

It was a nest of vampires who had taken to capturing young girls and selling them off to the highest bidder, sans mortality. And when they were done and Jessica stood in the burning building surrounded by decapitated corpses Chimera had nodded.

“I think we’re almost ready.”

“Almost ready! Almost ready, fuck almost ready! That was the most fun I’ve had with my clothes on.”

“I… didn’t need to know that.”

Jess just grinned at him through bared teeth, eyes bright with barely contained glee.

Ghost, wendigo, god, siren. She killed them all in that next cycles, quick and efficient and clean, never sticking around long enough for the other angels to find them. Chimera had explained that last cycle, about the angels wanting the apocalypse and Michael’s grudge because of Lucifer’s death.

He hadn't told Jess how Lucifer had died but the guilty glance at his wings meant she could guess. He’d learnt to hide them at that point but still left them out when they were at home.

After those hunts were done and Chimera was satisfied by her training they’d sat down in the middle of the living room and began to unbraid time, winding it back further and further until Jessica found herself standing on at an abandoned crossroad.


	7. Sam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam knew going to the crossroads drunk was a stupid idea but, hey, at least Horae wasn't trying to kill him.

Sam was drunk, he knew that. His mind was foggy and his limbs were clumsy and it was hard to concentrate enough to dig up the hole. The moon was high in the sky but clouds had crept to cover it a few minutes ago. He could barely see past his hands but he didn’t care.

All he could hear was Dean’s screams, his only thought his brother’s name. Dean, Dean, Dean, the desperation climbing up his throat like frost on a window. He needed him back, he needed him here, he needed him alive. He didn’t care if Dean hated him for it, he’d at least be alive.

“You are aware that won’t work, right?” a smooth female voice asked from behind him and he turned, pulling the colt from the back of his jeans.

He stumbled and the cloud cover passed just enough for him to see the woman leaning against the impala. She was slim and on the tall side for a woman, almost six feet. Her hair was dark but Sam couldn’t make out the exact shade. She’s wearing jeans, combat boots, and a leather jacket tossed over a tight t-shirt.

“Cristo,” Sam slurred, trying to aim past the drunken haze, “get off Dean’s car.”

The woman sighed and housted herself away from the car before striding confidently over to him. And then he noticed the mask, it glowed in the moonlight, shining metal surface decorated with complex etched designs. A red gem sat heavy on one cheek, just below one eye and three feathers sprouted from the top, right over where her third eye would sit. It was a beautiful work of craftsmanship and it was now pressed against the barrel of the colt.

“You weren’t close enough to see my eyes change, Sam Winchester,” she drawled, blue eyes boring into him from behind the mask.

Sam could feel himself trembling under her gaze, “What, what are you?”

“A friend,” she said in a calm voice, calmer than Sam would be with a gun pressed to his forehead, “Now, I have a feeling you’ve been at this for a while. How many deals have you tried to strike? How many demons have told you no?”

“How?” Sam asked past the lump in his throat.

“You’re drunk, I could smell the booze from over there and it’s not hard to see the desperation in your eyes. Do you really think that your brother would want you to do this to yourself? Sell your soul for his? Even if the demons would let you deal for it, which they won’t, do you really think he would be happy knowing that his baby brother, the only person who has ever truly been his, was going to Hell for him?” the woman asked, eyes never wavering, never leaving him.

“What do you mean? Who are you?” Sam asked, wavering back and forth on the balls of his feet.

“My name is Horae and I  _ mean _ Hell won’t deal a soul they already have in their grasp for one they returned for it, especially not one as powerful as your brother. If you dealt for something else, someone else they might take it but your more use to them up here. It’s been what, one week? Two?”

“Three,” Sam slurred and then repeated, “Cristo.”

The woman smiled at him but her eyes didn’t change and she didn’t flinch back from him like a demon would. He relaxed, if only slightly as Horae reached up to slowly push the gun away from her head. Sam let her do it and she kept her distance as the gun fell from his hand, numb fingers too weak to hold on to the grip any longer.

“Three weeks. Three days that’s how long it took Hell to go into lock down. No one gets in, not a soul gets out. You see, they’re preparing for siege, they have a Righteous Man in Hell and that will not be born,” Jessica murmured.

Sam opened his mouth to ask her something but stopped as he felt his stomach begin to rebel and bile began to climb up his throat. He turned and fell to his knees next to the hole he’d dug, retching in great, awful spasms that hurt as they wracked his body.

Horae sighed above him as he emptied the contents of his stomach into the hole, a mixture of rest stop food and alcohol. She crouched and lay a warm, small hand on his back. She rubbed slow circles into Sam’s spine and it helped, not much but it made him feel less alone. Her other arm went around his chest to support him seconds before he passed out.

When Sam awoke he had a splitting headache that felt like someone was trying to crush his brain between two great big metal slabs and he was lying on his side on a crappy motel mattress. Granted it was a better mattress than he was used to but it was still a motel mattress. He groaned and tried to open his eyes, the room he was in was dark except for one dim flashlight on the other bed, illuminating a small paperback and the red haired woman holding it.

“There’s water on the side table if you want it,” Horae commented softly, barely above a whisper, “I’d suggest drinking it, you’re incredibly dehydrated. And malnourished but we can deal with that later.”

Sam turned his head slightly, just that tiny movement forcing a sharp spike of pain to burrow up his brainstem. There was a cool glass of water on the nightstand next to him, his hand trembled as he reached for it. His mouth was dry, his throat was sticking to itself and his tongue was a heavy lump against his teeth.

He somehow managed to get himself up on one elbow and the glass to his lips, it banged against his teeth but he was careful to take small sips until the glass was empty. The water was blessedly cool against his parched throat. He carefully set the glass down on the table and toppled over onto the bed.

Horae let him stay like that for a few minutes, flipping pages every few minutes until she got to the end of the chapter she was reading. Then she carefully marked her spot and set the book aside.

“I suppose you have questions for me,” she said and flicked her flashlight off.

“You aren’t human, are you?” Sam asked.

“Not quite but I’m as human as anyone can get when they have a supernatural patron,” Horae told him, “but that’s not what you really want to know is it?”

“You said, last night you said Hell was preparing for a siege. What did you mean?”

“Your brother is a righteous man, the Righteous Man, actually. And Hell should have him, his soul is one of the most powerful in existence. Hell turning him into a demon would be like handing them a nuclear bomb, granted they’d realize they bit off more than they could chew a decades after they pulled him off the wrack but by then it would be too late. He’d be back up topside in under a year our time and given how attached he is to you, he’d probably be trying to turn you into the Boyking that Azazel tried to make you into,” Horae murmured and then shifted on the bed with a whisper of  fabric against the bed sheets.

“He’ll be back,” Sam breathed, as a demon but Sam didn’t care at this point all that mattered would be that Dean was back.

“Yes, but Heaven isn’t going to let Hell keep him,” the mysterious said.

“Heaven?” Sam asked and sat up, a horrible mistake.

Horae laughed to herself as Sam moaned under his breath and flopped back onto his bed, “Sat up too fast now did we?”

A moan was her only response as Sam curled further in on himself.

“And, yes, Heaven,” Horae confirmed, “the Righteous Man belongs to Heaven, he is the defender of humanity. Granted, most hunters would fit that description but most of them have blackened their soul one way or another. You and your brother are both pure and that kind of purity has power, especially since you two are the convergence of the lines of Cain and Abel. So Heaven, once they realize what is happening, will be laying siege to Hell to try and get him back.”

“How long will that take?” Sam asked as he stared at where he thought her face was, hope welling up in his chest.

“Hell’s time moves faster than ours, a decade for every month and Heaven hasn’t been paying all that much attention to Earth in the past couple of years,” she said delicately, picking her words with care, “It has been seven and a half years for your brother while it’s been three weeks for us. I do not know when Heaven will intervene but I know it will be soon but don’t worry if Heaven drops the ball my patron has promised to pull your brother out before the third decade is up.”

“Your patron? He’s a god? That’s the only thing I can think of that’s powerful enough to pull a soul from Hell,” Sam said.

“Hmm, that would be the closest being but Chimera isn’t anything like you’ve ever seen before. He’s… a bit of a frankenstein's monster as it were. He has several aspects, some are tied to Hell, some to Earth. It’s all very confusing,” she said.

Silence rained for a few moments as Horae’s words sunk in to Sam’s mind. Chimera, a creature they’d never encountered before with ties to Hell but not a demon, operating like a pagan but wasn’t one. He was too hungover for this and his stomach took that moment to make itself known.

Horae laughed, a low pitched barking sound that made Sam relax involuntarily. He hadn’t heard anyone laugh like that in a while, most women were too focused on making themselves sound sweet and delicate to really laugh.

“Hungry? Do you feel up to going somewhere to eat?” She asked.

“I think so,” Sam told her as he sat up, much slower this time as his headache started to fade away.

“Alright then,” Horae said and ten minutes later they’re sitting in a tiny dinner with early morning sunshine beginning to shine in through the window.

Horae had produced a pair of sunglasses from somewhere and Sam had decided not to ask. He’d just shoved them onto his face with a grumble before climbing into the impala. This was the first time he’d gotten a real look at the masked woman’s hair, it wasn’t the brownish auburn he’d thought it was while in the motel room. Instead it was a deep blood red that Sam knew wasn’t natural.

He had splurged and ordered a frankly daunting amount of meat and Horae had ordered pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream. They sat in silence until the food came and Sam watches in amazement as she moans around her first bite of pancake.

She gives him a nasty look from behind her mask, “Shut up, it’s been weeks since I’ve had pancakes.”

“Weeks?” Sam asked and shover a piece of sausage into his mouth.

“Chimera did the cooking and he was on a health food kick, mostly because I just went through hunter bootcamp, or his version of it anyway,” she told him.

Sam opened his mouth to ask about that but there was a beeping sound from under the table and Horae made a noise that seemed to want him to wait. He stayed quiet as she pulled out a slim black smart phone and turned it on.

“So, the reason I am here is to keep you alive and healthy until your brother gets pulled out of the hot box, be that by Heaven or Chimera. I honestly hope it’s Heaven that does it, Chimera’s never been Heaven’s biggest fan and if they fail he isn’t going to be happy about it,” She said as she read the text and slipped the phone back into her pocket.

Sam took another bit of his breakfast, chewing consideringly. He was trying to figure out what to do with that statement, questions spinning out in its wake. He picks what he thinks might be the easiest one.

“Why would you have to be here to keep me alive and healthy?” he asked and continues eating.

“Well, for one when I got to you you were pretty determined to drink yourself to death,” Horae scolded, “and for another there’s a demon circling you like you’re a prime piece of steak. Granted, I’m not all that surprised, it wouldn’t take much to turn you into their Boyking at this point, a few drops of blood in your coffee and a promise of the ability to save Dean… yeah, I think we can both figure out how well that would have turned out.”

Sam winced slightly because, yeah he could, it would have ended with him tearing apart Hell and building it back up. He would have pulled Dean off the wrack, turned himself and his brother into the de facto rulers of Hell to keep him safe. He would have gone on a rampage, killed every single demon who’d ever even touched his brother until the only one left was Lilith.

“Why doesn’t Chimera like Heaven?” he asked, trying to change the subject.

Horae set down her fork and chewed thoughtfully before swallowing, “Well, it has to do with the demons and how they’re handling the souls up in Heaven. Also fate’s wrapped up in that somehow, he never really explained that. But suffice it to say, he’s quite pissed that they let the Apocalypse get this close to occuring.”

“The Apocalypse?” Sam hissed across the table.

“And as he breaks so shall it break,” Horae said, “the Righteous Man must shed blood in Hell to break the first seal, which kickstarts the Apocalypse. It also starts the process of opening Lucifer’s Cage and Chimera’s pretty sure he’s at least mildly insane by now.”

“The Devil? We’re talking about the Devil now aren’t we?” he asked.

“Yes, though he’s an angel, not a demon. First of the Fallen, last too, they’re all dead now. Which is probably part of the reason that Lucifer is insane,” she muzzed, “I wonder if Chimera has a backup plan for that.”

“Back up plan,” Sam says dubiously.

“Mmm, I don’t think anyone will be happy if someone figures out how to pop the Cage open without breaking the seals. Demons especially,” Horae pursed her lips at him and dug into the rest of her breakfast.

Once they were done Horae waved a waitress down and paid the check to Sam’s protests. She just looked at him from behind her mask, a deadpan stare that quelled his protests almost instantly. He didn’t have money on him, she knew he didn’t have money on him, he’d been planning on hustling pool tonight to get the money he needed for his next hop to a different crossroads. But Horae just pulled out a slim black credit card that gleamed in the early morning light.

Horae’s phone beeped again as they climbed back into the impala. She pulled it out, “There’s a hunt a few towns over, looks like ghouls, if you’re interesting and, oh! That was fast.”

“What?” Sam asked, back going abruptly rigid as a grin spread across Horae’s face.

“Looks like Heaven finally decided to get involved,” she told him, “Chimera says it’ll take a couple of days but this hunt should kill some time.”

“What?” Sam breathed again, disbelief clear in his voice as he stared at the phone in her hand.

Horae turned her head to look at him with those piercing blue eyes, “Samuel Winchester, your brother is about to be raised from Hell by the forces of Heaven. The Righteous Man will be saved, even if Chimera has to drag an angel down to his wrack to get him free.”

Sam felt his lips quiver and a sob punched its way out of his chest as tears of shear relief began to trail their way down his face.


	8. Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chimera plays the villain in this tale and tries to keep Dean sane.

Chimera had decided that Hell was a lost cause about ten minutes after he’d arrived, following the Hounds down with great beats of his hellfire wings. He’d bunched the other two sets up, pulled them in until they sat curled tightly around his soul like a shield. He’d worn a half mask, completely blank and made of pure black porcelain.

He’d been careful to stay out of the way for the first few weeks to get a firm grasp on Hell’s political climate. Shocker, there wasn’t one really, it was just a nest  of chaos and violence and sin.

Demons were dumb, incredibly dumb, a fact exemplified by the fact that none of them had really noticed when the Hounds had started bringing souls to Chimera first, before going to the wracks. He’d panicked the first few times before he realized that they were bringing him souls to judge their worth. It was weird, really fucking weird but he dealt with it.

Crowley was the only one that had noticed and had immediately proved himself the smartest of the lot by taking one look at Chimera before turning around to leave. He’d then left the perceived Fallen alone for a day before returning with a gift basket and a promise to not notify the rest of hell of his presence.

The next day Chimera had decided that it would probably be easier to reveal himself instead of attempting to hid himself from the entirety of Hell. It had worked so far but he was going to have a difficult time once other demons started investigated the Hell Hound situation. Crowley may have been smart but Chimera had a feeling that the other demons might either try to kill him or start worshipping him.

So, he decided that if he was going to be staying in Hell for the foreseeable future he might as well make the most of it. He was going to make the demons’ lives so difficult, except for Crowley who had immediately bowed out of the situation with extreme prejudice.

It was glorious, he’d burst out of his hiding place with hellfire trailing around him and flew to the highest point of Hell. He’d shot up like a bolt and then spread them side as he hit the apex of his flight. There was an explosion of power that rocked the very foundations of the realm and Chimera had screamed.

Everything had stopped as the cry of a Fallen Angel rang across the burning plains, the first true Fallen in over several millennia. Most demons thought that the Fallen were a myth, a children’s story meant to keep them on the chaotic straight and narrow but here was proof that they existed. The souls on the wrack had no clue what was going on but they all breathed a collective sigh of relief as they got a brief reprieve.

Then, Chimera let himself fall backwards, looping in air until his head was pointing towards the ground and dove, wings folded neatly against his spine.

The rest of that year was a bit of a blur, demons who came to curry favor torn to shreds, the blackest souls of humanity dropped from on high, innocent souls plucked up and clutched close to his grace until he could find a reaper to hand them off to. Hell learned to fear the blank mask of the Final Fallen, all except for the crossroads demons and the Hounds.

Crowley had bargained for the lives of his people, offering secrets Chimera had never even known he had. Chimera would have left most of them alone anyways, rarely did an innocent make a devil’s bargain and the Apocalypse had put several things into perspective. But Chimera couldn’t get the story of Bela Talbot out of his head, so young when she made her deal.

The deal had turned out well all things considered, no children, no true innocents. Hunters were fair game, Chimera had thought about asking for a taboo against them as well but after seeing the state of the hunter souls that were already in Hell he’d thought better of it.

When the first year was done the angels weren’t there yet so Chimera laughed and dove down, down, down until he reached his brother’s rack. He appeared like a thunderstorm, scattering demons left and right as they all tried to get out of his path.

Dean was alone in a large amphitheatre with Alistair at the center. The head torturer took one look at Chimera and his hellfire wings and fled. He was one of the few still old enough to remember the former Fallen in all their glory, before they all died or fell into humanity.

Chimera climbed onto Dean’s wrack and sat next to him, hand trailing up and over the soul’s wounds, very carefully knitting him back together and fortifying his will. Chimera grinned at him, revealing rows upon rows of needle like teeth.

“Hello, Righteous Man,” he purred.

“Go to Hell,” Dean spat at him and Chimera laughed down at him.

“We’re already here, didn’t you know?”

“Yeah, I kind of guessed that, what with the hellfire and torture and the fact that I was dragged down by Hellhounds!”

“Oh, you are adorable, aren’t you?” Chimera asked and rolled over onto Dean’s chest.

A claw slid out of the tip of his finger and he began gently carving protective sigils into Dean’s chest. To anyone else they’d look like random squiggles, anyone but an angel that was and the angels weren’t here yet. These sigils were older than time itself and hadn’t been used in almost as long.

“Now, I’m going to tell you a few things that you’re probably not going to like,” Chimera said as Dean gritted his teeth through the incredibly minor pain.

“What? That I’m worthless? That I deserve this shit? That Sammy hates me? That-”

“No,” Chimera said, carefully watching as Dean’s soul dimmed slightly, “none of that now, it’s only been a couple of days topside and your Sammy loves you desperately. They’re going to try to break you, your father lasted a hundred years before he broke out, I doubt you’ll last so long but you don’t have to. All you need to do is say no. Say no when he asks you to step off the rack.”

“What? Don’t you want me to break?” Dean asked, face relaxing as the sigils on his chest began to ease his pain.

“No, I don’t. I like Earth, I like humanity and the pleasures it brings. So many things to play with, so many things to do. If they all die all there’ll be is demons and angels. Angels are boring and demons are dull,” Chimera whined.

“What are you talking about?” Dean snapped, a gradual realization appearing in his eyes.

Dean had always been far more intelligent than he let people see. Mechanics and puzzles, he was good at both. But where he really shone was when he had to come up with solutions to problems that didn’t even glance at the box to begin with.

“Click, click, click. It’s all falling into place,” Chimera whispered into his ear, “Don’t shed blood or the apocalypse begins.”

“What?” Dean breathed in horror.

“I’m going to do something and I need you to scream for me, as loudly as you do for Alistair,” Chimera murmured and plunged claws into Dean’s soul.

Or, rather made it look like he had. The scream Dean let out was very believable, vivid and so full of pain that it almost made Chimera cringe. Instead he let out a joy filled laugh as he let warmth pool in his hand and dragged it down Dean’s sternum, healing the marks his claws had left.

If any demon was watching it would look like the Fallen had just torn Dean’s chest wide open. Illusions were easy once you figured out how to make them and demons were expecting him to do something similar.

Chimera sighed and lay back down. Crossing his arms on Dean’s chest and laying his head along them. Seeing Dean again after so long was good, even if they were in Hell and Dean was technically dead was something Chimera could enjoy.

“Why are you helping me?’ Dean asked.

“I told you, I don’t want you breaking because as you break so shall it break and I can’t let that happen now can I?” Chimera answered, carefully rubbing his hand across the scar that was now writ large across Dean’s soul. “And don’t worry about Sammy, I have a friend up topside making sure he’ll be healthy when you get broken out. I need you to scream again.”

“Broken out?’ Dean exclaimed and then let out another blood curdling scream.

“Yes, Heaven can’t let its Righteous Man rot in Hell now can it. Your soul would become one of the most powerful demons this world has ever seen,” Chimera said.

It went on like that for seven years, Chimera playing avenging Fallen and judge of souls in the upper layers of Hell, slowly working his way down. Once every year he went to Dean’s wrack to renew the sigils on his chest and tell him of some of the events happening topside. He never mentioned how Sam’s health was failing, better Dean think Sam was struggling forward but still moving forward.

Then one the eighth year, while Chimera was telling Dean about the breakfast Sam and Jess - Horae, that was the name she picked, he needed to remember that - had had together the angels came. It was sudden and startling, a burst of grace shook Hell and light poured from a split in the dark storm clouds in the sky.

“Ah,” Chimera said, “there they are.”

“What are they?” Dean asked.

“Angels,” Chimera told him and slowly pulled himself away from Dean, “I’m going to be back. I’m going to go fuck with them.”

“Alright, see you in a year,” Dean said, he’d warmed up to Chimera after year three once he realized Chimera being there meant no torture and learning new things about Sammy for a day.

“I’m going to pull one down here to get you,” Chimera told him, “it might take a bit.”

“How long is a bit?” Dean asked.

“A few years, I need to find the right one. Just don’t draw blood, don’t break under the knife,” Chimera said.

“Got it, Fallen,” Dean said, he’d never learned Chimera’s name, never asked and Chimera had never told him. He’d just started calling him what he’d heard the demons call him.

“See you in a few years,” Chimera nodded and flapped his wings.

He took a back route towards the front line, sneaking into the cliffs around the top of the bowl that was Hell. He watched the angels for a while, watched their movements, watched how they fought. He watched the more powerful hold back, faces twisted in disgust, watched the lower ranking angels fight against wave after wave of demons. They weren’t dying, demons couldn’t kill angels but they were getting injured. They were getting tired.

One wave of angels would come and fight and then pull back as they got tired, to recoup. Chimera couldn’t recognize most of them, which meant they were young, so young that Lucifer had already be locked in the Cage when they were created. That part of him, the grace that had integrated so well with his soul that he couldn’t even tell the difference any more, had climbed into the back of his brain and was screaming in fury.

Fledglings, they were sending fledglings into Hell. Fledglings that had never experienced something like this before, who were experiencing war for the first time. Or, fledglings who were built for war, like Cas, the ones Heaven considered cannon fodder.

Chimera took a deep breathe and fought past the blinding fury that he had gotten a lot better at looking past since he’d resurrected Jessica. She’d put a lot into perspective when she’d come back from the dead. He looks past the fledglings desperately throwing themselves against the demons boiling up from the depths of Hell at the higher ranking angels.

They weren’t all that high ranking actually, all middle management types of Zachariah’s rank at the highest. He scanned them carefully, searching, searching until he found who he was looking for.

Zachariah, the douchebag was hanging around near the very back of the angels’ lines, near the rift in Hell’s sky. It was a time for a little intervention, Chimera was not going to tolerate Zachariah letting fledglings fight while he held back and sneered at their efforts.

Chimera snuck up the cliff further and further until he was behind the angels’ front line. It was surprisingly easy, the angels weren’t really paying attention to the cliffs, more focused on the fighting with the demons than their flanks. It helped that he kept his grace banked low, his Hellfire dim as he crawled along the cliff.

Once he was past the front line he flare his grace up, brought his Hellfire to full strength, and launched himself at Zachariah.

“ _ Fallen, _ ” one of the angels gasped in shock and silence reigned for a handful of seconds.

“ **Fallen!** ” the demons roared in joy, pushing the angels back towards the rift in a sudden surge that caught the Host off guard.

“ _ Fallen, Fallen, Fallen. _ ” The word rang through the ranks of angels as Chimera blew past them, careful to stun but not injure. He could hear the panic in their voices, the pure terror that shook them to the core.

Most of them had never even seen a Fallen before and all of them had thought that they were all dead. Which would have been true if Chimera wasn’t time traveling. Chimera almost felt sorry for them.

One angel flew at him, black wings spread wide, blue and purple tinting the ends of his feathers, and blade swiping at the Fallen’s face. Chimera reached up and grabbed Castiel’s wrist, stopping the blade inches from his face. He spun and pushed Cas away from him carefully, trying not to hurt the angel. Dean would be so pissed off at him if he ended up hurting his mate.

Cas spun out and crashed into a knot of other angels. Chimera spun and redoubled his efforts to get to Zachariah. He got close enough to watch the angel’s six eyes go wide with horror before he even thought to turn to flee.

Chimera caught his drab brown wings in clawed hands and Zachariah screamed as he was ripped from the sky. The Fallen pulled him down, dragged him past the angels and the demons, down, down, down until Chimera spun and kicked Zachariah into the ground.

The angel crashed like a bag of bricks, a trembling, sniveling bag of bricks. Chimera scoffed as he landed with his foot planted in the center of Zachariah’s chest.

“Tsk, tsk,” Chimera said, shaking his head, “you’re supposed to be an angel. Where’s all that rage? All that power? All that fight? Maybe I should have grabbed one of the young ones? That black winged little one had some fire in him.”

Zachariah nodded vigorously, “ _ Yes, yes, take him! Take him instead! _ ”

Chimera scoffed in disgust, “No, honor among angels I see.”

“No kidding,” Dean said from his wrack, “please tell me this isn’t the asshole that’s here to drag me out.”

“Oh no, I wouldn’t let this worm touch you even if he begged,” Chimera said, reached down, and tore Zachariah’s chest open, “How long has it been? I haven’t been keeping track.”

“Year and a half,” Dean drawled, “I was beginning to think you’d forgotten about me.”

“I’d never do that, I’ve got your savior all picked out and everything,” Chimera drawled as he reached into Zachariah’s grace and began to burn it out.

Zachariah didn’t stop screaming for a long, long time.

When the Fallen was done there was nothing left of Zachariah except for a few singed feathers. Dean stared at where the angel had been looking both horrified and vaguely impressed, granted he’d probably seen anyone but himself in that much pain before but oh well, Chimera had planned to play villain for this tablo anyway.

“Be back in a bit,” he said and took off again, shooting back up towards the angels as fast as possible.

Cas was on the front line this time, the Fallen could see him and he angled himself towards him. The black winged angel saw him almost instantly and cut down one of the demons trying to get past him.

“Rematch!” Chimera called out, flipping his wings at the angel playfully.

Cas roared in rage and dove for him. The demons parted before him like the sea, Chimera waving aside the few that tried to intercept him. The blade in Cas’s hand flashed, cutting down the few who didn’t get out of the way fast enough.

Chimera dodged that flashing blade, the tip barely skirting past his right wing on purpose. Cas looked murderous as he lunged for Chimera again, who dodged again, pulling back further before turning and diving.

Cas followed him, the rage blinding him to the fact that every dodge, every swirve, every dive drew him further and further into Hell. Deeper and deeper they went, slower than Chimera’s fall with Zachariah had been. Cas was an excellent flyer, there was an artistry and strength to it that most of the younger angels lacked. Either someone had taken the time to actually teach him how to fly or he’d figured out how to do it himself.

When Chimera finally landed it was on where Zachariah’s corpse had been, Alistair fleeing down further into Hell like the coward he was. The Fallen sighed in irritation as he watched the demon flee, he would probably have to go hunting the torturer after this was done.

“You good?” he asked Dean as he watched Cas dive towards him.

“Well my intestines are all over the floor and I watched you burn out an angel six months ago but other than that I’m good,” Dean said, voice dripping with sarcasm.

Chimera lept back and over Dean as Cas came down on the spot where he’d been standing seconds before. The Fallen watched as the angel stood from the crouch he’d landed in and do a double take when his eyes landed on Dean.

“ _ What? _ ” he asked in disbelief.

“Gorgeous isn’t he, Heaven’s Righteous Man,” Chimera said and traced over one of the sigils embedded in Dean’s soul, “I couldn’t let them ruin him. So bright, so close to a taste of heaven after so long. Of course I couldn’t figure out how change him. He’s close enough to an angel I think but when I tried to transplant that unworthy angel’s grace he burned up.”

Cas’s faces contorted in disgust as he held his blade out in front of him defensively. Chimera almost laughed as Dean writhed under his hand, innards slowly pulling themselves back into his abdomen and skin knitting itself back together.

“ _ You will not corrupt the Righteous Man, I will not let you, _ ” Cas pronounced with a finality that forced a laugh out of the Fallen.

“Oh, you won’t now will you,” Chimera said with a smirk, “you’ve got fire in you, little one, far more than that bit of filth I grabbed before. I should have used you from the start.”

And then he lunged, slowing his movements as he saw Cas’s blade come up, just enough, just barely enough. He screamed when Cas’s blade struck his side, cutting through him like a hot knife through ice.

It was agony, pure pain that he hadn’t felt for almost a decade, not since Horae had landed her first few hits on him. And he did what any sensible Fallen would have done when they were severely injured, he fled.

Down, down, down, deeper and deeper into Hell, further than he’d ever gone before. He really hoped Cas didn’t follow him, Dean needed out of Hell and fast. He might not have broken but Dean was pissed off enough to take a swipe at Alistair by now.

When he stopped he was next to an iron structure with carefully etched Enochian sigils covering every inch. It felt familiar, friendly, home.

Chimera drew closer almost involuntarily and put a hand on the structure, eyes going wide as he realized what it was, why it felt so familiar. He could sense loneliness and grief and confusion.

“ _ Hello? _ ” Lucifer breathed from the interior of the Cage and Chimera let out a long, shaking breath.

“Hello,” he said, “Archangel Lucifer… Brother.”


	9. Lazarus Rising

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean drags himself out of his grave and meets Horae.

Dean’s head broke the surface of the dirt with a great heave and he breathed in fresh air for the first time in over a decade. He was hot, thirst, hungry, and horribly, irrationally exhausted. He pulled himself out of his own grave and lay in the grass for a few brief moments.

Sam had buried him instead of burning him and he didn’t know whether to be pissed off or greatful. Fallen had mentioned something about it taking longer if his body wasn’t intact during the fourth time he’d visited.

Dean stumbled to his feet and gazed around, there was a ring of flattened trees around his grave, probably marking where the angel had touched down. Dean hadn’t caught his name during the escape from Hell but he remembered the feeling of being enveloped in something warm and safe and loving. It was slightly disconcerting, Fallen was safe, Fallen talked about Sammy and stole the pain away, let him sleep but Fallen burned hot, almost too hot to touch.

The angel hadn’t burned hot, just bright, almost blinding in his glory. Beautiful and precious and Dean shook that off like it was made of Hellfire. No, he would not think of an angel like that, it would end badly for all involved.

Dean looked around and found a road. It looked deserted so he started walking down it, legs weak but getting stronger with every step. He could see a tiny convenience story a little ways down the road and he made for it like it was an oasis in the desert.

It was closed, thank God because he didn’t want to have to explain the grave dirt covering him from head to toe. He got in easily enough and made a beeline for the fridge and the bottled water lined up inside it. He downed one in huge, desperate gulps.

The water slid down his throat, soothing the parched skin and wetting his tongue. He stomach growled in fury and tried to rebel against the water, it didn’t want water, it wanted food.

Dean screwed the cap back on the water and turned to start raiding the power bars. Those would at least be easier on his stomach than the array of sweets and he didn’t think he had enough jaw strength right now to try to eat the jerky by the cash register.

There was the sound of an engine coming down the road and Dean froze for a few seconds. It took a moment before he recognized the sound of the engine and his shoulder twinged.

He frowned and walked over to a mirror and pulled his shirt up to look at his stomach. Nothing but smooth skin which was good, he’d expected some damage, maybe scars but Sam didn’t need the reminder of his death. But there was something else, something higher up.

The car’s engine cut off and one of the doors opened as Dean pulled his shirt up higher. He recognized Fallen’s marks instantly.

He wasn’t all that surprised no matter what Alistair had done to him they’d stayed branded into his skin, into his soul. Dean doubted the angel would have been able to do anything about it or know to do anything about it, it’d never seen his soul before Chimera had dragged it down to Dean’s wrack.

“Sam, you want anything?” a woman’s voice called as someone walked up the steps.

Dean pulled his left sleeve up and stared at the bright red handprint on his shoulder. What the fuck? The angel had marked him. What the everloving Hell?!

“Get me a granola bar if they have those peanut butter ones,” Sam’s voice called and Dean froze.

Sam. Sam was here, Sam was alive.

He whipped around to see a masked woman step into the store and scan the shelves before her grey blue eyes landed on him. Her hair was blood red and her mask was made of some silvery metal Dean didn’t recognize the look off. She smiled at him for a second, a small satisfied grin that made her eyes light up.

“Oh, Sammy, I think you should get in here, I’ve got a surprise for you,” she called over her shoulder and stepped inside, “It’s good to see you alive, your brother is a self sacrificing idiot.”

That startled a laugh out of Dean and he rolled his sleeve down, “I take it you’re the associate Fallen mentioned.”

“His name’s Chimera,” the woman said and bowed low, “Horae at your service, Righteous Man.”

“Dean!” Sam exclaimed from where he’d just appeared in the doorway.

Joy spread across his face before apprehension replaced it and he glanced at Horae. She rolled her eyes and nodded. Sam’s face split into that wide dopey smile Dean hadn’t seen for years now and he bounded forward like a giant puppy to catch Dean up in a bear hug.

It was desperate and firm and warm and human. Dean felt a sob clambering up his throat and he buried his face in Sam’s shoulder. He was too dehydrated to cry but his body was putting up a valiant effort to try. He had his baby brother in his arms again, Sam was alive and he hadn’t sold his soul.

“Sammy, Sammy, Sammy,” Dean whispered into Sam’s shirt in an attempt to muffle himself.

“Dean. Dean, you're alive I can’t believe,” Sam stopped and sniffed, “Did Chimera pull you out or-”

“Angel,” Horae commented from a few feet away, “left his signature and everything. We’ll be able to summon him if you can get a psychic to figure out his name.”

“We need to get to Bobby’s. He shou-”

“ **_DEAN WINCHESTER IS SAVED!_ ** ” A voice boomed and all three humans shouted in alarm as the windows burst from the sheer volume of the pronouncement.

“I CAN HEAR YOU GOD DAMN IT! TURN IT DOWN!” Dean roared.

“WHO IS THAT?!” Sam asked.

“GET A VESSEL BEFORE YOU TRY TO TALK TO HUMANS FOR GOD'S SAKE!” Horae screamed at the top of her lungs, hands clapped over her ears.

The voice abruptly stopped and all three breathed a sigh of relief. They looked at eachother, Sam still clinging to Dean, unwilling to let him go yet. Then a realization past across Dean’s face and horror overtook shock.

“Baby!” he cried and scrambled out of Sam’s hold to run out the front door so he could get a good look at the impala.

Thankfully her windows were still intact and Dean breathed a sigh of relief as he made his way down the steps to her. She was sleek and shiny and gleamed in the sun. she looked good and Dean popped her hood to get a good look at her engine. It looked better than ever and there was a tiny sigil carved into the top of the engine block.

“That’s a protection sigil, keeps her from getting damaged by anything supernatural. There’s one on the inside of the gas cover, to keep the tank filled up,” Horae said from where she was leaning against the doorway of the store, “we haven’t had to stop for gas since I put it there.”

“What was that?” Dena asked and shut the impala’s hood, stroking along the shiny black paint. He honestly didn’t know wether to feel thankful or indignant on behalf of his car so was just going to ignore the sigils for now, “It sounded like a bomb going off.”

“Angel,” Horae said, “their true voices can be a bit overwhelming. Sammy’s raiding the store for food and water. Could you here what he was saying?”

“‘Dean Winchester is saved’, I’m guessing he’s the schmuck that pulled me out,” Dean said and walked around to the drivers side.

He slid into the seat and it felt like coming home. Something in his chest loosened at that and he breathed in the scent of leather and gun oil that he associated with the impala. Dean let his eyes fall shut and just absorbed the calm of his baby.

There was the sound of the back door creaking open and Dean cracked one eye open to watch Horae slide into the back seat. She was a gorgeous woman all curves and muscle clearly visibly under her skin tight black tank. Her boobs were awesome and Dean hadn’t gotten laid in a while, he was also pretty sure that being resurrected meant he was a virgin again.

“Don’t even think about it, Dean, I’ve got my eye on a different Winchester,” Horae drawled with a tiny quirk to her lips.

“What, so I can’t look?” Dean asked, there was something familiar about her figure and voice.

Horae snorted and her head jerked, red hair waving slightly at the moment, “I never said that, now did I. It’s not like I’m only wearing a bra or something. Besides you’ve been in Hell for forty years, I’d worry there was something wrong with you if you didn’t stare at the first set of tits that got waved in front of your face.”

Dean grinned and shut his eyes as Sam climbed into the passenger side.

 

~*****~

 

The drive to Bobby’s was somewhat uneventful and Dean decided that he liked Horae immensely after she started playing and singing incredibly bawdy tavern songs in the back seat to make Sam blush.

“Horae, stop!” he whined during the third rendition of a song about princesses and what happened after ever after.

“Nope,” Horae chirped, “ _ loves first kiss is not an indication that the prince in your bed will meet all your expectations. So listen miss if the stable boy is better, choice the man who’ll make your ending happily ever after. _ Are you a prince or a stable boy Sammy? Because if your a prince we’re gonna have to fix that.”

Dean couldn’t hold it anymore, he burst out laughing. She’d been doing this for an hour straight as Sam got redder and redder. The songs got baudier and baudier, it was beautiful.

They pulled up to Bobby’s to the tune of a song she called The Old Monk and Horae doubled down on the thing as she jumped out of the car and started dancing around the impala as she sang. Dean was dying in the front seat as Sam jumped out of the passenger side to chase after her. She just kept singing as she ran around the car, dodging Samm’s gigantor limbs.

Dean climbed out of the car so he could get a better look at the chase that was taking place. There was the sound of a shotgun cocking and everything stopped abruptly as all eyes were drawn to Bobby.

“What the hell is going’ on here?” the older hunter asked.

“It’s him, Mister Singer, I would be able to tell if it wasn’t,” Horae said, voice going abruptly courteous and incredibly polite.

Dean blinked at her, it was a bit strange watching her mood do an abrupt one eighty. She’d been all playfulness and joy before now, angry at the angel when he’d spoken in his true voice. But he’d never seen her sollum and coy.

“You sure, girl,” Bobby asked, lowering his shotgun slowly.

“Yes, sir, we came to ask if you knew any psychics who might be able to find whoever did it,” she said.

“Can’t you do it?” Bobby asked with narrowed eyes and Horae shook her head, “And stop calling’ me sir, you're making me feel old.”

“No, si- Mister Singer,” Horae stuttered out, “I’ve told you before, my powers are based mostly in protection spells and offensive magic. I have very limited sight, just enough to See the true faces of most creatures. I’ve not been trained for a long range scry.”

“Right then,” Bobby said with a dubious eyebrow, “y’all want lunch?”

Dean’s stomach growled noisily, the food from the store had been a good snack but it was no substitute for an actual meal. He was starving, still hungry from the energy it must have taken for the angel to reverse the rot that must have occurred during the month… yeah, month, Chimera had said a decade in Hell was equal to a month topside, while Dean was dead.

Dean must have eaten twice his weight in sandwiches by the time lunch was over with and Horae started looking like she wanted to pull out a set of palm palms to start cheering. She ate a good amount too, which was reassuring, she wouldn’t be fainting on them midcase if she ate like that all the time.

They climbed back into the car and headed off to Bobby’s friend Pamela Barnes, who he’d called during Dean’s attempt to completely demolish the contents on Bobby’s fridge. Horae was more subdued in the backseat, reading something on her phone, snorting at something once or twice.

At one point she went deathly still and then shot off a text to someone, muttering about idiot prophets and voyeuristic assholes. Dean didn’t ask, Sam didn’t ask, Horae just kept muttering to herself before going quiet a few minutes later.

Pamela turned out to be a hot brunette that took one look at Horae and broke down laughing, “Oh my, this is perfect, it explains so much.”

“Shut up,” Horae hissed at her.

“I won’t, don’t worry about that hot stuff but you just through a wrench in every single plan anyone had from here to Judgement day,” Pamela purred and snaked an arm around the other woman’s waist to tug her inside.

“That was the point, it’s why Chimera picked me,” Horae told her and Dean’s eyes fell to the two woman’s curves where they pressed together.

“Dean,” Sam hissed at him.

“What? She said I could look,” Dean told him with an indignant expression.

Sam just glared at him while Pamela and Horae had a low whispered conversation in front of them. It looked like Horae’s quest to get into his brother’s pants wasn’t a lost cause at all. Sam didn’t normally get this territorial about people and he’d only know her for a week at most.

“So, I’ve wegied my way through every spirit I know and none of them have anything even approaching useful information on this angel that pulled you out of the hot box. Next up is a seance, I’m gonna get you a name and then you can summon it on your own time,” Pamela said.

“We’re not summoning it here?” Bobby asked.

“Few people can look at an angel’s true form without burning their eyeballs out and I highly doubt he’s got a vessel yet,” Horae answered before turning to Pamela, “which reminds me. Can I piggyback on your spell? Chimera set up a vessel for him so he doesn’t have to go claim the man he’s been circling as a vessel. I need to tell him where it is.”

“Sure, sweat thing,” Pamela purred and pecked Horae on the lips.

“Wait, angels possess people?!” Dean asked, Sam looked slightly dumbstruck.

“Hmm,” Horae hummed, “yes, they need consent to do it though. My advice, if you have any weird dreams about people asking you to use your body just say no. It’s like drugs that way.”

“Oh, he probably won’t need to worry about that, given what your Patron scrawled all over his chest,” Pamela laughed.

“He wasn’t kidding about that?” Horae asked.

“Yeah, it’s a pretty in depth possession ward from what I can tell,” the brunette told her.

Horae hummed and gestured towards the table Pamela had set up, “Let’s get on with it then.”


	10. Castiel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel is so confused. So very, very confused.

Castiel was confused. When he’d pulled The Righteous Man from the Pits of Hell the soul had buried it’s hand in one of his wings. It had been… pleasurable, a sensation he had never known. Better than when his brothers groomed his wings, what few brothers bothered anyway.

Dean had not gone quietly into the arms of the Heavenly Host, which was strange in and of itself. He was distrustful of all save Castiel and that had confused everyone until the higher ranking angels had theorized that Dean only trusted him because he was the one to pull the man from the wrack.

Everyone had accepted the theory as fact after a few spars seconds but Castiel was still looked at it with dubious eyes. He was young, he knew he was young, made in the middle of the Fall when heaven had needed soldiers most. He was more willful than most, if an angel could be willful and most of his original garrison had either Fallen, ripped out their own grace, or died in that long ago war.

But the Fallen were dead now. Castiel had helped ensure it, being one of the few that volunteered to hunt down those few Fallen who climbed out of Hell to cause chaos on Earth. Azazel had been the last, to their knowledge and he had died over a year ago by Earth’s time, by the Righteous Man’s hand no less.

So why, oh why was there a Fallen in Hell? Why had he been so intent on Dean? What did he mean by Zachariah having been unworthy? And why didn’t Castiel recognize him?

Castiel had memorized the faces and corrupt grace of every single Fallen that had been in the war and all who he remembered were gone. This Fallen didn’t feel like any of them, the green sheen of his hellfire almost pure, untainted by the Fall even though he was Fallen.

None of Castiel’s siblings had Fallen, truly Fallen, not just retreated into humanity, since the war and those that had ripped out their grace felt nothing like this Fallen. It confused him, tied his mind up in knots and made his brain spiral into deeper and deeper logic loops that made absolutely no sense.

He’d shaken the thoughts off and pulled Dean out of Hell, into the Earthly plane. The resurrection hadn’t taken much, just a few touches of grace to reverse the decay and heal any wounds present on Dean’s body. Fishing the Righteous Man out from where he’d buried himself in Castiel’s wings on the other hand took far far longer.

That had confused him even more. Why would the soul cling to him so desperately?

After a few hours Castiel had admitted defeat and broke off a tiny sliver of grace to send into Dean’s body along with his soul. The ploy worked and Castiel was able to retreat to Heaven where he could watch the Righteous Man without fear of injuring him. His true form would be overwhelming but perhaps Dean would be able to perceive Castiel’s voice.

He waited and watched, bided his time as Dean made his way to the tiny store near where Sam Winchester had buried his brother. His form was beautiful, not to the extent of his soul but as beautiful as a physical form could be to an angel’s eyes and Castiel enjoyed watching him move.

There was another soul coming closer and Castiel instantly recognized Dean’s brother, Sam Winchester. It was brighter than he’d thought it would be but it really shouldn’t have been a surprise, he was the Light Bringer’s Vessel after all. And Castiel felt a twinge in his grace at that thought because he had never ever thought of Lucifer like that.

His grace and mind had always been in agreement over the topic of Lucifer. He was a traitor, he had twisted humanity into a mockery of itself, and launched a war on Heaven that had taken the lives of hundreds of angels. He had never known the other angel, never even seen him, never heard his voice for which Castiel had thought himself blessed. But in Hell he had felt his presence, felt the chill of the other angel’s grace, sense the loneliness rising up from the depths of the Pit.

And now he was looking down at the Earthbound embodiment of Lucifer and for the first time in a while that niggling doubt that had lived in his grace, born with the death of the first of his garrison to Fall, came to the forefront of his mind. He shook it off, tamped it down but there was lingering confusion as the younger Winchester brother rushed up the stairs of the store.

There was someone else there, someone Castiel couldn’t see from Heaven, couldn’t even sense even though he could tell they were there. It was uncomfortable and strange, he was not used to not being able to see things. There were a few tricksters that could, he knew that but they couldn’t do it for long and even then he would have been able to taste the pagan magic flavoring the air around the masked presence.

There was none of that there, there was just nothing. More confusion and then he tried to speak to them.

Dean heard him but he said he was too loud, Sam had heard him too and he couldn’t hold quite hold in the bubbling joy that flowed through his grace. They were blessed and Castiel could not see the taint of demon blood that heaven said had to be there in Sam’s blood, on Sam’s soul. Instead he could see tiny threads of grace pressed to his soul and every had forgot that Azazel was an angel but Castiel couldn’t, he’d seen him on the battlefield with fiery wings spread wide as his blade met those of so many others.

Castiel had been on the front lines and survived so many conflicts that they all blurred together but that image would stay with him forever.

And then another voice had spoken up, a female voice. It was crisp and clear and held no trace of demonic taint or Hell, quite the opposite actually. Underneath what humans could hear was the jeweled tinged tones of a soul that had been taken from Heaven.

“GET A VESSEL BEFORE YOU TRY TO TALK TO HUMANS FOR GOD'S SAKE!”

And Castiel pulled back from the mortal plane, reeling from shock. How had a soul managed to escape Heaven? How had she achieved a physical form? How had she known about Vessels and what he was?

The confusion continued with the seance that the two brothers used in an attempt to contact him. The experience had been jarring, the feeling of a purely human magic hooking into his grace and not letting go, tugging him closer and closer to the mortal plane. The voice that called to him was unfamiliar but powerful in the way most psychics were said to be.

But there were two distinct magical signatures behind the power of the seance, the human one dominant but under it was something else. Something that was far more mixed, human but not at the same time.

He told the psychic what she wanted to know, gave her his name as he continued his idle search for a vessel. And then she tried to get a look at him, yanking on his grace with a strength that he didn’t know a human was capable of.

“ **_Stop, I will burn you_ ** ,” he warned as he tried to pull the seance’s hook out of his grace. He didn’t want to hurt her but if she saw him he would.

“I invoke-” the psychic began.

“PAMELA! STOP!” the other being behind the seance cried and the second power surged forward, yanking the psychic’s magic back.

Castiel froze as he recognized the tinge of grace in her power and the voice of the woman who had told him to get a vessel before he spoke to the Winchesters again. How did she have grace? Had one of his siblings been reincarnated and found their grace? But no, she felt human too, her power burning bright with a very human fire. Was she a descendant of one of the Blessed?

“Castiel, I can’t hold her back for long. Go to this cabin,” an image flashed before his eyes, “my Patron had crafted a vessel for you. He objects to the practice of taking humans as vessels. Hurry, the Winchesters will be summoning you within the day.”

And then the seance power was gone, pulled out of his grace like a human would pull a splinter.

Castiel had paused for meer fractions of a second to consider her words before he went in search of the cabin she had spoken of. It was secluded, high up in a mountain range, almost completely unreachable by land.

The vessel was inside, lying on a pallet on the ground, draped in a down comforter with an intricate pattern of red and purple thread. It looked a lot like James Novak but there were small differences, enough so that they would look like especially close siblings rather than twins. The hair was blacker, the nose slightly smaller, and it was a bit younger in appearance, mid twenties rather than early thirties. It was satisfactory and empty of any soul.

He examined it for a few moments and then folded himself down into the vessel. It fit perfectly, like a second skin. He didn’t notice the sigils tattooed across his ribs until it was too late. He was already in the vessel, his new body and he was stuck there.

Castiel sat up and pulled the comforter back to stare at the Enochian on his skin. It wasn’t the Enochian he was used to, all circles and logical, utilitarian patterns. It was older, more powerful, more creative. The interpretation was slow but he finally puzzled it out after a few moments.

“ _ Castiel, Angel of Thursday, be welcome and claim your mortal form _ ,” Castiel murmured in Enochian, he could feel his grace merging with the vessel, no the body.

He could feel it becoming a part of him like his grace was, like his wings were. Who had done this? Who was the woman’s Patron? He would need to ask her if he saw her.

The body was naked but some hunting around turned up a pair of black slacks, white button up, and tan trenchcoat. He watched them for a few seconds before he nodded to himself and let the cloths melt onto him. They fit perfectly and felt softer than they should against his skin.

Castiel could sense more Enochian warding on the cloths, most likely either stitched or drawn along the hems. Protection from attack and wards against wear. He pondered it for a few moments before he felt the telltale creep of human magic against his grace.

He ignored it for a second and then his new eyes had widened when he realized that there was an Enochian base to the summoning spell. This was no gentle prod, like most spells, this was a downright demand, a yank on his grace that was getting more and more insistent by the second.

“ _ Castiel, Angel of Thursday _ ,” Dean’s voice murmured across his grace and he felt it shiver, warmth shooting its way across his being, sinking in deep, “ _ we summon you to us, please answer our call _ .”

And Castiel couldn’t resist, wouldn’t have resisted even if the spell hadn't just locked itself around him and pulled him across miles upon miles of space until he stood in the center of a devil’s trap in an old barn made of iron.

Dean snapped a leather bound notebook shut and grinned at him. Something coiled deep in Castiel’s grace causing his first true breath in a human body to quiver as it was drawn into unused lungs. He was was even more beautiful in person those deep green eyes even more striking up close as they bored into his own.

“Hello, Dean,” he said, voice gravelly and deeper than he intended as those eyes trailed over his body.

The Righteous Man’s eyes fixed on a point just behind Castiel’s left shoulder and the grin broadened into a full on smirk, “We match.”

Castiel blinked and glanced up at his left wing. There was a green patch of feathers on the upper curve, the exact shade of green that resided in Dean’s eyes. He hadn’t noticed that before, then again he hadn’t had time to groom recently.

“It appears so,” Castiel drawled and stepped out of the devil’s trap, “Dean, I need to speak with you.”

“Yeah, Chimera said you might want to tell me more about this apocalypse deal,” the human said.

“Chimera?” Castiel asked, pausing mid step, “Who is Chimera? I know of no being by that name.”

“The Fallen,” Dean told him, waving that revelation aside like it was nothing at all.

Castiel felt his wings arch up in a clear show of aggression at the mention of the Hell winged thing he’d faced off against in the Pit. It made Dean chuckle for some reason.

“Yeah, Horae thought you might have that reaction,” Dean drawled and stepped closer.

He was within a foot of Castiel now, close enough that the angel could smell him. Gun oil and sandalwood, cordite and steel. Castiel’s grace pulsed and he felt it shift under his skin, wings fluttering into a completely different configuration. One far more friendly than he wished for Dean to see.

Castiel tamped down on the temptation to reach out and touch that shining soul in it’s lovely packaging. He cleared his throat and looked deep into Dean’s eyes, almost falling into them.

“Why did you pull me out of the hot box, Cas?” Dean asked and licked his lips.

Castiel tracked the movement, unable to stop himself from staring, “Because God commanded it, because He has work for you.”

“God wanted me out, huh?” Dean asked and stepped back, Castiel barely restraining the desire to follow.

The human prowled around him like a jaguar around its prey. Castiel tracked him with his grace when he wandered out of eyesight. Dean trailed a finger just a hair’s breadth from Castiel’s wing, right over the green patch and they quivered under the almost touch.

“Did the big man give you the order Himself?” Dean asked, the cynicism in his tone clearly evident.

Castiel's eyes narrowed as Dean rounded him to stand in front of the angel, “You don't believe you deserved to be saved. Good things do happen, Dean.”

Dean smiled at him, “I’m starting to see that. Why were you the one Chimera dragged down? He never even pretended that he was going to let the other one drag me up.”

“I… you are implying that the Fallen wanted you out of Hell. Wanted you Saved,” Castiel said, confused for the umpteenth time in the last few days.

Dean snorted in amusement and stepped even further away from Castiel but didn’t answer him. He just looked as Castiel and waited, patiently for the angel to answer his question.

Castiel floundered for a few seconds before he managed to find his voice, “I… believe that his interest might have arisen from the fact that I was the only one of my brothers to attempt to stop him from breaching our lines when he went after Zachariah.”

“He knew you were a fighter,” Dean said, nodding in absentminded agreement, “he knew you could get me out. Makes sense, couldn’t risk me drawing blood.”

“What? What do you mean?” Castiel asked, dread gripping his grace and he couldn’t figure out why it was there.

Dean snorted, “Chimera doesn’t want the world to end. He doesn’t like demons or angels but he likes Earth, called it a party once.”

“He’s been on Earth?” Castiel asked.

Dean snorted, “Cas, he was only in Hell for as long as I was when you stabbed him, no one could have missed that coming out party.”

“I, I need to report this to my superiors,” Castiel stuttered out.

“Cas, wait-” Dean’s words were cut off by the rush of space as Castiel flew back to Heaven as fast as his wings would carry him.

The next few months were a mass of even more confusion as Castiel watched Sam and Dean hunt, growing even closer than they had before, rotating around a central point. That central point being the woman none of the angels could sense and who always seemed to conveniently absent when Castiel dropped in to personally visit Dean.

He couldn’t keep himself away, that ever strong soul was just too tempting. Castiel was spiraling and he knew it was a bad idea for him to feed into the want he felt for the Righteous Man. It was a delicate balance as it was, teetering just on the edge of too much.

Castiel wanted him, more than he’d wanted anything ever before. Dean was precious and strong and beautiful and Castiel’s grace ached with it. But there were too many questions and too much to do. Angels were dying and no one knew why and he felt every death like it was his Garrison all over again.

But no one had seen Chimera, for all Castiel knew he was still in Hell but why he would stay there if he could get to Earth Castiel did not know. And then his superiors sent him down with Uriel to test the Righteous Man and everything got ten times more confusing.


	11. Samhain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Horae threatens an angel and kicks witch ass.

“It’s like the bitch hopped a broomstick,” Dean muttered angrily and Horae rolled her eyes behind her mask.

“She’ll be making the third sacrifice any time,” Sam agreed.

“There was something about that teacher,” Horae started to tell them.

“Trick or treat,” a boy in an astronaut outfit interrupted.

They all blinked at him in mild confusion. They knew it was halloween but still, they hadn’t been expecting a kid to come up to them.

“This is a motel,” Dean told him, slightly incredulous and Horae rolled her eyes again, harder this time.

“So?” the kid asked.

“So we don’t have any candy,” Dean told him.

“No, we have a ton in the-” Sam started.

“We did but it’s gone,” Dean told him.

“God, Dean, you’re such a pig,” Horae groaned, “ _ I  _ saved some, you two go on ahead and I’ll grab some for him.”

The two brothers looked at each other and shrugged before carrying on to the motel room. Horae gestured for the kid to follow her as she turned back to the impala, he followed her eagerly.

“Why are you in a mask?” the kid asked as she popped the trunk open.

“Hmm, oh, we tend to go all out for Halloween,” the red head told him as she rummaged around for the bag she’d stashed out of Dean’s sight, “there’s this book series called Supernatural I’m really fond of, don’t read them till your at least fourteen. They just came out with the newest volume a few months ago and introduced this new character called Horae. Which is nice since those books tend to be a bit of a sausage fest, ah here we go.”

She ducked out of the trunk, holding a small cloth bag that bulged oddly. Horae tugged it open and tipped the contents into the kids plastic bucket, ten mini chocolate bars thunked into the bottom.

“Thank you,” the kid chirped.

“Now don’t egg the car alright, Dean has a bit of a temper and I don’t want to sit through two hours of mumble speak when we leave,” Horae whispered to him with a conspiratorial wink.

The kid nodded vigorously and Horae shooed him off. She closed the trunk and took a deep breath, if Chimera remembered correctly Sam and Dean would be talking to Castiel and Uriel right now. She’d stalled enough, she just hoped that Castiel trusted the brothers enough that she wouldn’t have to do anything drastic. And with any luck Uriel wasn’t killing off other angels this time around.

“-I’ve heard alot about you,” she heard Sam stutter out as she drew closer to the motel room.

“And I you,” a deep gravelly voice told Sam and that had to be Castiel, it couldn’t be anyone else, “Sam Winchester, one of the brightest souls I’ve ever seen.”

Horae grinned to herself as she got closer to Dean, she’d heard about what happened last time, it hadn’t been pretty. At least this time the angels were seeing Sam as Dean’s brother and not an abomination that needed to be put down.

“Thank you, for bringing Dean back-” Sam started to say and was interrupted by what could only be Uriel.

“How can you even stand to touch him,” the other angel scoffed as Horae walked into the motel room, “he’s the Boy with the Demon Blood, tainted beyond redemption.”

“Fallen blood actually, you’d think an angel would be able to tell the difference,” half way through the sentence Horae realized she was the one back talking an angel but she was already there so she just kept going.

Silence as the two angels blinked at her in dumbfounded confusion. She smirked, they wouldn’t have been able to sense her or see her soul, her mask ensured that. Chimera hadn’t wanted that particular cat out of the bag too early.

“Who are you?” Uriel asked, trying to loom from where he stood by the windows, “What are you?”

“Human,” Horae drawled at him and cocked one hip out, “as for the who, I’m the one who’s been keeping these boys sane for the past four months. Horae, at your service.”

She bowed theatrically to get a chuckle out of the brothers. The two angels just stared at her, Castiel looking mildly confused but she wasn’t able to read Uriel’s emotion, not by a long shot.

“Who are you? I know who Cas is but you’re new,” Horae said as she straightened.

“This is Uriel, he is a… specialist,” Castiel said, recovering first.

Both of the angels were staring at her like they were trying to peel back layers of skin to get a glimpse of her soul. Castiel looked slightly resigned as his eyes dragged over her but Uriel’s eyes were hard and determined as he stared at her chest.

“Oh, should I be flattered?” Horae asked and crossed her arms under her boobs as Castiel’s gaze paused on her mask, “Didn’t know I was pretty enough to tempt an angel.”

Dean snorted from somewhere behind her and Sam had started growling. That made her grin, he’d always been a possessive, overprotective caveman when he let himself act like the predator he was. Both of them were predators, it was kind of amusing actually, watching civilians and monsters alike fumble under their gaze.

“Your mask,” Castiel breathed out and cocked his head to one side like a bird.

Horae grinned and braught up one hand to caress along the edge of the Celestial Steel that covered the top half of her face. She was waiting for one of them to notice that, it was a good deflection, a truth within a truth.

“Do you like it?” Horae asked and then switched to Enochian, “ _ Hide my face for I am Blessed. _ ”

Both angels flinched at her perfect pronunciation of the words, at a human knowing their secret tongue. Castiel looked less shocked than Uriel but he still looked adorably confused.

“What are you a specialist for?” She snapped at Uriel while he was off balance.

“He is a… you would call it a demolitions expert,” Castiel answered.

Dean took a step forward, fury writ large across his face as he realized what that meant, “You’re going to level the town.”

“Dean-” Castiel started, holding a hand out for Dean.

“Your here to get us out before you blow this place back to Hell,” the elder Winchester snarled.

“We can not allow Samhain to be raised, even though the first seal hasn’t been broken releasing a demon like him onto this plane would have disastrous consequences,” Castiel tried to explain.

“Yeah but nuking an entire town isn’t the answer,” Dean spat.

“They’re here to get us out,” Sam realized.

“Well, they can’t nuke the town with you two here now can they,” Horae commented and stepped forward, putting a little prowl into her step as she advanced on the two angels, “The Righteous Man is Heaven’s warrior here on Earth and you won’t leave without him.”

Uriel had drawn closer to stand at Castiel’s back. It wasn’t the stance of a comrade offering support though, it looked more like an aggressor trying to intimidate someone. Horae almost snarled at him for that.

“We’re not leaving, you destroy this town and you take us with it,” Dean snarled.

“ _ Fly away, little one, fly away, _ ” Horae told Castiel in Enochian and then turned her eyes to Uriel, “ _ You tread on ice so thin a breath would break it. Your blood is already in the water, don’t fall in. _ ”

Both angels went very still before they stretched their wings, black and menilla. Uriel’s were weaker than Castiel’s, she could have seen that from a mile away. Both sets of wings flapped and the angels were suddenly gone.

There was silence for a few moments and then the brothers breathed a sigh of relief.

“Alright, they can’t blow up the town until Dean leaves,” Horae told them as she turned to look at them, “I can do something about those witches when we find them but until then I can do diddly and squat. And while they are nice boys from respectable families I’d like something a little more substantial.”

Sam blinked in mild shock, “Witches, as in plural? And what the hell did you tell them?”

“Yeah, two,” Horae said, “there’s two energy signatures at the crime scenes, I didn’t notice it before but it’s clear enough now that I think about it. The Enochian was a warning, Uriel is… well, if he doesn’t stop walking the path he has chosen then Chimera is going to lose his shit.”

“What’s he doing?” Dean asked.

Horae sighed and rubbed at the back of her neck, “That isn’t relevant right now, I’ll tell you later if it is but we don’t have the time and we really need to find those witches.”

They did find the witches and it turned out that the bad feeling Horae had gotten from the art teacher was incredibly founded because as soon as they’d “rescued” him he’d turned around to try to finish the ritual the female witch had set up.

“Nope, not happening,” Horae spat through clenched teeth and pulled one of her blades out from the top of her boot.

The brothers were sprawled across the floor but she was still standing. She knew she should have put wards on the two boys before now but it had kept slipping her mind. The blast of magic the male witch had used to incapacitate them wouldn’t have even felt like a breeze if she’d remembered the warding.

She could taste the magic in the air, dark and putrid with rot. She could smell sulfur in the air but it wasn’t the intense scent of a demon’s power, it was different and that made her wary because fuck that noise.

She stood from one knee and brought the blade up in front of her in a defensive position. The witch turned to look at her in consideration, head cocked to one side in a way that was disturbingly reminiscent of Cas.

“What are you?’ he asked her, eyes skimming over her body in consideration.

“I’m a Winchester, dickbag, and that’s all I need to be to kill you,” Horae said, feeling herself go blank and cold, fire fading into the embers meant to forge iron.

The two brothers might have been predators but they weren’t the same, not by a long shot. They both had tempers that ran hot and fast until it came time to use that anger for something else. Dean’s anger stayed hot, a molten lava thing that simmered in his veins. Sam on the other hand went cold, glacial cold and calculating. There was a reason Sam was better at poker and Dean at hustling. Horae took both of those qualities and found a middle ground between them.

The asshole laughed as he began to creep towards her, “No, you’re not, no human could have remained standing after that.”

“Oh yes I am,” Horae growled and set her feet more firmly as the witch drew closer.

“Who is your deal with? He has to be powerful to give you the ability to stand against me. Do they know? Or are you hiding your true nature?” The witch asked.

Horae suppressed a wince but something must have shone in her face because the witch flung back his head with a laugh. In that moment of destruction she bolted forward in a moment of blinding speed and buried the blade between the asshole’s ribs, hitting the heart at an angle and shredding it with a flick of her wrist.

“They’ll find out eventually,” the witch spat through the pain as his body lit up from the inside out, “Not even the best of us can hide forever.”

Horae could feel him trying to bring up enough power to attack or complete the ritual. Her eyes narrowed and she breathed out one word in Enochian, “ _ Purify _ .”

The witch’s scream cut off his next words. His head fell back as that inner light blazed brighter and brighter until it seemed to be burning him from the inside out, flame licking up his throat. She watched with a mildly uninterested look as the witch slumped, the light going out as his soul finished burning up.

Horae pulled her knife out of his body and it crumpled to the floor. There was a squeak behind her as the two men stumbled to their feet. Dean was cursing under his breath and it made her smile as she turned to look at them.

“I didn’t know you could do that,” Sam commented, eyes slightly wide with shock as he looked at the witch’s burned out eyes.

“What the hell was he talking about?” Dean asked as he looked at her with watery eyes.

Horae sighed and rubbed at her eyes under her mask, “Magic is complicated and requires a lot of meditation and knowledge of your own soul that most people aren’t capable of. So, since the potential of magic is so great a lot of people cheat, that’s where demons and gods come in. That’s what a Patron is, a powerful being that a human ties their soul to in return for power. And while Chimera technically is my Patron he taught me magic the hard way round before dumping a shit ton of Enochian into my head, I am bound to him on a metaphysical level but not in the way witches are.”

“He thought you made a demon deal and where a witch in the traditional sense?” Sam asked.

“No actually, traditional witches are women and men with an aptitude for magic who grow their own talents,” she corrected him, “He thought I went about it the easy way.”

Dean gave a snorting scoff that made Horae grin with how indignant he looked, she was aware of Dean’s opinion on witches, she’d read the books based on the brothers’ lives and the ones involving witches had made his opinion quite clear. He’d been chill about the spells on the impala but then again all of that spell work wasn’t all that noticeable. If he could get past Horae’s first real show of magic then she was golden and when her real identity came out he wouldn’t kill her without a second thought.

“Yeah, well none of us do things by halves,” the blonde said and walked over to the altar the two witches had set up in the dingy basement, “some of this shit is just disturbing.”

Horae hummed, sheathed her blade, and walked over to the bag she’d dropped outside of the door they’d entered through. She grabbed one of the straps and carried it over to the altar.

“Alright,” she said and opened the top of bag, “Dean, I need you to draw a salt circle around the altar and both of the bodies. Then, stand towards the setting sun,” she handed him a bag of salt she’d soaked in holy oil earlier, “Sam, go stand at the easternmost point of the circle.”

The boys snapped into motion as Horae lit a bundle of sage and pulled out an orb made of clear diamond. The two brothers were in position as she raised the orb above her head, it glowed slightly in the dim light of the dark basement.

“ _ Darkness deadened, corrupted power, I call to you with this orb of power, _ ”Horae whispered under her breath and then she let herself get louder, “ _ Fire burning against the night, chase back the corruption, balance and fight. _ ”

She tossed the sage onto the salt around her and the boys and the smell of corrupted magic. It lit up into a ring of fire that blazed bright white, the brothers jumped slightly as the air around them thickened and turned black and grey around them.

“ _ Ensnare, _ ” Horae snapped and the darkness around them swirled and then spiraled towards the diamond orb that lay in her palm.

The orb turned grey and then black as it heated in her palm. It burned against her skin, hot and angry. She swallowed past the nausea as the black magic of the uncompleted ritual brushed against the back of her mind.

Calmly she reached down and pulled her other celestial steel blade out of her other boot. She dropped the orb onto the altar and raised the blade above her head with both hands.

“ _ Purify, _ ” she whispered and brought the blade down.

There was a shockwave of power that exploded out of the orb and ran up against the holy fire circle before reflecting back in. When the magic hit the orb diamond disintegrated into a fine white powder that burned brightly in Horae’s mind’s eye. She sighed in relief and carefully pulled the blade of the knife out of the magically charged powder.

“Alright then,” Dean said as he stared at the glowing powder, “did it work?”

“Yes,” Horae said, “time to go.”


	12. Anna and Alistair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The three hunters meet Anna and Alistair is killed messily.

Horae did not like Anna. Sam could not for the life of him figure out why because Horae liked most people they came across as a point of her character. Her dislike of the other woman was making Sam nervous, Anna could hear the angels and they didn’t know why.

Was she a demon? Was she psychic? How had she gotten hooked up to angel radio if she’d just been a plain human before this?

The redhead had been pissed off since the moment she’d gotten Chimera’s text and it had only gotten worse when they’d found the Miltons slaughtered in their own living room. The church seemed to make her twitchy and  as soon as Anna had stepped out from where she’d been hiding those grey blue eyes had narrowed.

“And you’re Dean, the Dean?” Anna said, voice shaking as her eyes fell on Horae, “And you’re the woman who’s been keeping them safe.”

“Well, yeah,” Dean told her, confusion and smugness evident in his voice, “the Dean, I guess. And her name’s Horae.”

“It’s really you,” she breathed in relief, “oh my god, the angels talk about you.”

As Anna stepped forward Sam could see the tension in Horae’s shoulders go up a few notches as her hand crept towards the knives at her back. Silver and iron alloy, less flashy than the boot knives but just as deadly when used on human flesh.

“You were in Hell but Castiel pulled you out and the Fallen kept you sane and some of them think you can kill Lilith before the first seal has a chance to break,” Anna said as she drew closer and closer.

“Stay back,” Horae growled at her, eyes sharp and teeth bared.

Anna just turned to her with a look of awe on her face that could not be mistaken for anything else, “And you, you are the first Blessed born to this earth in over two millennia and you’ve already saved Sam from a fate worse than death, even though a few of them don’t like him.”

And then there was hugging. The human girl had strode forward and flung her arms around Horae’s neck to cling to the other woman. This close up Sam could pick out the difference between their hair shades, Horae’s was a brighter red while Anna’s tended more towards a brown auburn.

Horae flailed as the other woman held onto her like she was a long lost friend and this was their first meeting after years apart. The look on her face was priceless and Sam vaguely wished he could take a picture without Horae getting pissed off.

“They talk about you all the time lately, I feel like I know you,” Anna murmured into Horae’s hair.

“So you talk to angels?” Dean asked and Anna pulled back from her one sided hug.

“Oh no, no way,” Anna said with a self deprecating smile as she stared into Horae’s eyes, “they probably don’t even know I exist, I just kind of overhear them.”

“They probably think you’re dead,” Horae commented.

“What?” Sam asked.

“She’s fallen, ripped out her grace,” Horae said as her eyes trailed over Anna’s torso, “I’m surprise she’s lasted this long without them noticing. Then again, they probably weren’t looking. Hence them thinking she’s dead.”

“So they locked her up with a case of the crazies when she was really just turning back into Angel Radio?” Dean asked.

“Yes, thank you,” Anna whispered and lunged forward to hug Horae again.

The other woman gave an exasperated sigh and reluctantly returned the hug. Sam snorted at the sight, which earned him a pointed glare that promised retribution later.

“Anna, when did the voices start?” he asked, trying to redirect the woman’s fury, she was hot when she was pissed but he didn’t want to be on the receiving end of that anger.

Anna pulled back again to look at the younger Winchester, “I can tell you exactly, June 18th.”

“The day I got out of Hell?” Dean asked.

“First words I heard, clear as a bell,  _ Dean Winchester is saved _ ,” Anna said.

Sam hadn’t caught the last part, all he’d caught was Dean’s name but he recognized Enochian when he heard it. Horae had used it enough that he’d caught on to a few phrases at least.

“English, sweetie,” Horae told her, “Looks like you’re further along than we thought.”

“This is so far above our paygrade,” Sam said.

“Well, at least we know why the demons want her so bad, they get her they can jack into what the other side’s planning,” Dean puzzled out, “It’s what I’d do, you’re 1-900-Angel.”

“Hey, are my parents okay? I didn’t go home,” Anna admitted, “I didn’t want to drag them into this.”

“They’re dead,” Horae told her, gently.

“Horae,” both Winchester brother’s snapped as tears began to well up in Anna’s eyes.

“What?” the girl whispered as Horae scowled at both of them.

“It’s like a bandaid, boys, besides we need to get out of here. If we figured it out the demons certainly will given enough time,” she snapped at them before looking back at the fallen angel, “We found them with their throats slit right next to one another, no sign of struggle. It was fast and as merciful as a demon can manage.”

“That- that’s something at least,” Anna said as tears trailed down her cheeks and she sniffed.

“Alright, you can cry later but right now we need to get back to the motel room,” Horae said, gazing directly into Anna’s eyes and holding her gaze, “I’ve got it warded six ways from sunday and no one but Cas and us is going to be able to get in unless I let-”

“Horae,” Sam said and pointed at the statue of the Virgin Mary in the corner, it was weeping blood.

“Well, fuck, too late,” Horae commented and began pushing Anna back, “Come on let’s find you a place to hide.”

Dean and Sam both drew knives from their belts and turned to face the door. Horae had managed, after several failed attempts to make a few more demon killing blades that were of a much higher quality than Ruby’s knife. She herself had those two celestial blades of hers and a sword made of the same material but that was back at Bobby’s since it hadn’t really fit in the trunk all that well.

Horae found a closet after a couple of minutes of searching and pulled Anna into it before handing her one of her boot knives, “Stay here, keep that at the ready, I’ll knock twice before getting you out, and for god's sake don’t call the other angels.”

“You’re going to call him aren’t you?” Anna asked.

“Who?”

“The Fallen, the angels might not have figured it out but I have and I know he doesn’t want the world to end or for the Winchesters to be hurt,” Anna babled.

“How? No, wait, we don’t have time, you good otherwise?” Horae asked.

“Yes,  _ Blessed, _ ” Anna said.

“Ho, we really need to get your grace back,” Horae whispered before slamming the closet closed just as the door to the attic burst open and knelt to draw her other blade.

“Daddy’s home,” a middle aged man purred as he walked up the short flight of steps towards the two brothers.

They both shivered in disgust as they caught a glimpse of what was writhing beneath his skin. Dean took a step back from the demon and closer to Sam as he advanced towards them. Sam moved up to get his brother slightly further away from the new threat, this was the first time he’d seen Dean genuinely scared in years, not even the Hounds had elicited this kind of a response.

“Oh so you do recognize me,” the man said with a twisted smile.

“Alistair,” Dean breathed as his fear began to solidify into anger. Anger was easier to deal with, he could handle anger right now, fear just made him feel vulnerable.

“Oh, it is him isn’t it,” Horae snarled as she pranced out from behind the pillar just behind the two brothers to stand at their backs.

“And who might you be?” Alistair asked with a sneer, “The Winchester’s new fuck toy.”

Both brothers growled at the comment and took a simultaneous step towards the demon. No one talked to Horae like that, they knew that she could defend herself, she had proved that fact time and time again. She’d stood up to angels and killed more monsters than they had on the past couple of hunts but that insult demanded an answer.

Horae laughed at the demon and shook her head in amusement, tisking under her breath. The brothers went still as she moved to stand between the two of them.

“I never understood why demons were so obsessed with you two’s supposed incestious relationship,” she commented and traced her blade through the air, “it’s like they don’t ever get laid themselves.”

Alistair’s eyes narrowed in irritation as he peered at her, “Who are you then? What exactly are you?”

Horae grinned at him, continuing to trace the blade in patterns through the air, “No one special, not really. I’m just a human woman with a bit of magic to my name, my Patron on the other hand, he’s something special.”

Alistair went very still as he looked closer at the carvings on her mask, they look familiar, like he’d seen them before. He couldn’t remember where he’d seen the before but they put chills down his spine.

“Who?!” he snarled and flashed his eyes at her.

Horae just smirked at him and raised her arms towards the ceiling, “Chimera! Guess who decided to show his black eyed face!”

Alistair's eyes went wide as he recognized some of the carvings and tried to run. They were the same symbols that the Fallen had been carving into Dean’s soul. But he couldn’t run, something seemed to be holding him in place as the Fallen stepped out of the air in front of Horae.

Both Winchester brother’s stared at him, he was as tall as Sam with long brown hair braided all the way down to his mid back and tied off with a bell. He wore jeans and a dark green t-shirt that clung to more muscle than most people could dream of having. His feet were bare, which was incredible strange and he had a black porcelain mask covering the top half of his face.

Two wings stretched out from a space slightly lower than most angels and they blazed a bright green. They looked like they were made of fire and shadow.

“Horae, thanks for the heads up,” Chimera said and turned to look at the three humans in the room, “Sam, Dean, it’s good to see you.”

“Fallen,” Dean said with a nod.

“Hi,” Sam said, eyes still trained on Alistair’s struggle against his invisible bonds, “what’s wrong with him?”

“I bound him to that spot,” Horae said and struggled before slipping her blade back into her boot, “how is your end of things going?”

“I’m almost done, all I need is Lilith’s blood and a few other things, tell me when she shows up,” Chimera said and turned back towards the demon in the room.

“Oh, you’re beautiful,” a small voice said from behind them and they all turned to see Anna standing behind them.

“I’m Fallen, sister,” he told her as a small smile spread across her face.

“I know but,” Anna said and dropped the blade in her hand, it clattered to the floor as she stepped towards him, “you don’t look like I’d think a Fallen would.”

“I’m not a normal Fallen,” Chimera told her and turned back towards Alistair, “You have been an elusive little shit, torturer.”

“Fallen, whatever I’ve done to offend you, I-” Alistair started before Chimera cut him off with a gesture of his hand.

“Your existence offends me, in fact every demon’s existence offends me but you, you are a special case,” Chimera told him, “you took part in the attempts of Hell to end the world, I like Earth, I like humanity. What I don’t like is demons and angels. But that alone isn’t enough to have earned my ire. No, you spent ten years torturing Dean on that wrack and for that you have earned my fury.”

“Fall-” Alistair tried to say.

Chimera was in front of him in a second eyes glowing bright green, the same green of his wings. His hand wrapped around Alistair’s throat, choking off his title halfway through the word.

“Ah- ah-ah,” Chimera said quietly, voice barely above a whisper, “you don’t even deserve to speak in their presence. Or breath their air. You are such a twist little creature with no real concept of what you’ve done. Or who’s wrath you’ve incurred.”

The crack of Alistair’s neck as it snapped under Chimera’s hand reverberated through the room like a gunshot. Anna flinched back from the noise and reached out to grab the hem of Horae’s jacket. The headache she was nursing for the past couple of days eased slightly as she stared at the wings on the Fallen’s back.

“You’re not a normal Fallen,” Anna whispered as the body of the demon hit the floor.

Chimera hummed and a blade dropped into his hand. It gleamed the same silver as the celestial blades Horae wielded. Alistair tried to squirm away as he choked on his own breath and the Fallen planted a boot in the small of his back.

He drove the blade between the demon’s ribs and lit it up with hellfire. The demon screamed as he burned from the inside out, it wasn’t as loud as it could be, a gasping, choking thing that barely reached a whisper of sound. And then he crumpled to ash around the blade.

“What the fuck?” Sam whispered under his breath.

“He did that to an angel in Hell,” Dean commented as he stared at the blackened pile of clothes and ash that had been the demon that had tortured him.

“He killed an angel?” Sam snapped.

“Yes, an asshole named Zachariah, he was watching the fledglings flying against demons without raising even a finger to help them,” Chimera confirmed and turned to look at them.

“You’re not a normal Fallen,” Anna repeated as she stared at Chimera’s chest.

“No, I’m not,” Chimera said and then turned to look at Sam, the blankness where his eyes should be making the younger Winchester shiver, “if you want to find her grace look for old trees and meteor showers that occured around the same time she ripped out her grace.”

And then he was gone, vanishing into thin air in the same way he had appeared, like he was stepping backwards and slightly to the side. The two brothers blinked at where he’d been standing a few seconds before and Horae just sighed in exasperation.

“And that was Chimera,” she said calmly.

“He’s not a normal Fallen, I don’t recognize him,” Anna said as she drew closer to Horae, “All the Fallen are supposed to be dead.”

“All the originals are,” the other red head confirmed as she reached back to gently pull Anna’s hand off of the back of her jacket, “let go of my jacket, Chimera isn’t going to come back and eat you. He’s not a normal Fallen, like you said, he wasn’t an angel before he became one, he won’t tell me or anyone what but he wasn’t one of Lucifer’s Garrison.”

“Let’s go find you’re grace,” Sam said and put a hand on Anna’s shoulder.

The shaken ex-angel nodded and stepped away from Horae’s side, her spine straightened as she swallowed back her mild panic. She knew Chimera wasn’t going to hurt her or the Winchesters or the Blessed because Horae was his Blessed and he liked the Winchesters and Anna had done nothing to hurt any of them. But seeing a Fallen again, after so many years and the amnesia of being a human had been intense to say the least.


	13. Of Trees and Angels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anna's grace wasn't where she left it and Dean gets dream stalked by an angel.

None of the four people in the impala was happy when they reached the giant fucking oak tree that sat in the middle of the grassy field. The first sign of there being an issue was when Horae started swearing under her breath as they got into a ten foot radius. Then Anna touched the tree and nothing happened.

“Oh, for fuck sake!” Horae had shouted after about ten seconds of everyone blinking in confusion.

The brothers turned to look at her in shock as she glared at the tree and Anna pulled her hand away from the empty tree. Dean turned back towards the impala, frustration writ large across his face.

“What happened? Why didn’t it work?” Sam asked.

“Fucking angels,” Horae spat and stomped forward to grab Anna’s hand, “One of them must have found it and took it. If we’re lucky they haven’t already absorbed it because if they have, there’s no getting it back.”

“But, why?” Anna asked as the other woman pulled her away from the massive tree, “I haven’t done anything to deserve them my grace from its resting place. I just ripped it out, it’s not like I killed any of my siblings.  _ Who would take it? They should have just left it where they found it! _ ”

Horae yanked the door to the impala and clambered in before digging around for her phone. Sam and Dean looked at each other before following the two woman into the car. Dean started the car and Sam turned around in his seat to watch Horae speed dial.

“So,” she barked into the phone as the other to watched her, “one of the angels took Anna’s grace… yes, already… blind luck I’m assuming… I don’t know! How would I know, Chimera?... no, they didn’t show up to gloat… alright bye.”

“Bobby’s?” Dean asked as he rolled the car away from the curb.

“Bobby’s,” Horae sighed as she shoved her phone into her bra, “His house is going to be the best place for me to ward against angels. Chimera says that the angels probably figured out that Anna existed the moment she was in the same room as you two.”

“Well, fuck,” Dean said and glanced over his shoulder at the ex angel in the back seat, “sorry about that, Anna.”

“Oh no, it’s fine,” Anna said, waving the apology away, “being human and knowing what I was is at least better than not knowing and being tortured by demons. Besides, I’ve met the first  _ Blessed  _ in over two thousand years, that’s worth it in and of itself.”

“What does Blessed mean? The angels keep calling you that,” Sam asked as he turned back around in his seat.

Horae sighed and stretched, cracking her back where it lent against the back of the car seat. Then she looked at Anna, “Do you want to explain it or should I?”

“I only really remember that the  _ Blessed _ are special and to be protected,” Anna told her, “you probably know more than I do.”

“This will probably jog a bit more of your memory,” Horae said and slumped further into her seat, “Blessed are angel touched, humans that angels have given grace to. Not vessels, not nephilim but humans gifted with grace. In small doses you get what I am, a human with heightened senses, the ability to see what creatures are at a glance, strengthened physiology, and better reflex. In higher doses you get Jesus.”

“Wait, what?” Dean snapped as his head jerked up so he could look at her through the rearview mirror, “Like you get healing powers or something.”

“No, I’m being completely literal,” Horae told him as both she and Anna stretched out across the back seat, “Jesus was a Blessed. I think he was Michael’s Blessed, actually.”

“Yes, he was,” Anna confirmed with a far off look in her eyes, “ _ I think he was the last thing Michael cared about. He was cold after that, less a brother more a sol- _ ”

Horae slapped a hand over the younger woman’s mouth, “Thank you for confirming that for me, it’s probably best for you not to start remembering that without your grace. I don’t think a human brain can handle those memories without grace supporting it. So stop.”

“Is she alright?” Sam asked as he turned to look at the two woman again.

“No, she an angel getting her memories back in pieces without her grace to support her mind,” Horae said, “we’re going to be lucky if we get her grace back before she goes completely insane. If she does hopefully the grace will repair it but it’ll probably blow up her body and she’ll need a vessel.”

Anna grumbled behind the hand and Horae pulled it away from her mouth carefully, “How long until we get to your friend’s house?”

“Fifteen hours,” Dean said after a moment of mental calculation.

“We should sing to pass the time,” Horae chirped.

“No!” Sam yelled with a blush spreading across his face as Dean snorted into his chest, “Horae, don’t corrupt the angel!”

“You’re not protesting Dean corrupting his angel,” Horae told him, eyebrow raised.

“Well, Cas isn’t going to sit in the back seat and sing dirty tavern songs! He and Dean are just going to ride off into the sunset in the impala and get married in a wedding full of leather and pie!” Sam protested.

“And have kinky, kinky angel sex,” she told him with a lewd grin.

“I’m not thinking about that part,” Sam snapped at her and opened his mouth to say something else but was interrupted by the sound of Anna giggling.

Horae’s smile turned smug as Anna continued to laugh at the argument that had just taken place. Distracting the panicking angel with memory issues was something she was going to throw her all into for the next couple of hours because she didn’t want to deal with an insane woman with grace on her side.

She pulled up her bag from under the bench seat and began digging around in it, looking for the Supernatural books, “Well, if we can’t sing until we get there then I have a few books you might like. Ah, here it is.”

Anna took the first book with a dubious face and then flipped it over to look at the cover. Her head tilted as she examined the two shirtless men and Horae waited for her response to the book.

“Did you just hand me porn?” the ex angel asked and the other woman burst out laughing.

“What?” the brother’s chorused.

“No, no,” Horae forced out past her chuckles, “it’s a paranormal fiction series. The only books I’d label porn have one scene and it’s badly written porn at that.”

“What are you going to do?” Anna asked as she cracked open the book.

“I’ve got ebooks on my phone and I’ve already read the series through, I don’t actually have the new installments, so I’m going to go hunting for those in ebook format,” she said and snuggled down further into her seat.

The ride to Bobby’s was relatively quiet after that only briefly interrupted by food stops, brief whispered conversations in the backseat, and one incredibly memorable call to Bobby that was almost completely cursing on the older hunter’s part. Anna ended up taking a nap halfway through and woke up spouting in Enochian. Horae had given the brothers a look that had told them both to butt out before going on to talk Anna down from unlocking more of her memories.

They pulled out of the impala at Bobby’s around sunset, all of them exhausted from the drive, even Anna, despite her nap. They ate robotically and made small talk as Horae walked around the house drawing tiny Enochian sigils on everything with a fountain pen she’d pulled from somewhere, the boys had learned not to ask.

“Where am I sleeping?” Anna asked as she stared bleerilly down at her plate, pushing mashed potatoes around with her fork.

“I can sleep in the impala and you can take my room,” Dean suggested.

“No,” Horae called from the living room, “you are too tall for that car, you can take the couch and I’ll take the car.”

“But-”

“Dean Winchester, I am aware you are a gentleman and you love that car like it’s a woman but you are too tall to comfortably lie down in that back seat,” she continued as she wandered into the kitchen to doodle on the walls, “I may be five ten but I’m far more flexible than you are and am used to sleeping curled up in that car, normally while you blast Metallica at Sammy.”

“Don’t call me Sammy,” Sam groaned.

Horae turned to look at him and raised an eyebrow, “Sammy, Sammy-Sam-Sam, Sammalamala-”

“Oh my god, stop,” Sam snorted as Dean burst out laughing.

There was a muffled thump and all eyes turned to Anna, who had apparently passed out with her head on her arms. The faint snoring coming from her downed head was barely audible and Horae snorted in amusement at the strand of fluttering hair that trembled on her currents of breath.

“Looks like the past two days caught up to her,” she said and pulled open one the cabinets above the sink.

Sam watched her houst herself up onto the counter with vaguely worried eyes. He knew he didn’t need to be worried but Horae consistently took too many risks with her own safety.

“She going to be okay to sleep?” Dean asked as he watched Anna’s fluttering hair.

“Oh yeah,” Horae said as she drew something on the inside of the cabinet door, “she let me put a minor dream ward on her, she should be fine if she doesn’t try to go digging around in her memories. If we keep her awake it might actually get worse, the human brain is incredibly resilient but sleep dep is never a cure for trying to avoid your problems, it just makes everything worse when you do go to sleep.”

Sam shrugged and wobbled to his feet with a yawn, “Well I’m going to bed, I’ll get her into the other room.”

 

~*****~

 

Dean was dreaming, it was a nice dream, soothing. He was sitting on the edge of a dock with a fishing rod and Sam was sleeping on the beach nearby with Horae curled up on his chest. Her mask was lying on the sand next to them but for some reason he couldn’t quite make out her face.

He reached to pick up the beer by his left foot and leaned back in his chair to take a sip. It was cool on his lips even though the day was warm and the sun was high in the sky above him.

Wings rustled behind Dean and he smiled.

“Cas, didn’t expect you to show up here,” he said as turned his head, “we found one-”

The angel standing stiff backed behind Dean wasn’t Castiel. If the vessel he was wearing hadn’t given it away then the manilla wings definitely would have. Dean vaulted to his feet, one of Horae’s blades forming in his hand in half a second of thought. It was one of the boot knives, he didn’t know how the sword would feel in his hand and using it would somehow feel like overstepping his bounds. Besides he was more familiar with knives to begin with.

“Uriel, what are you doing here?” Dean growled as he held the blade up between them, “Where’s Cas?”

Uriel smirked as he strode forward, “Oh, he’s not here right now, you see I have orders to apprehend the traitor for questioning. We didn’t even know she existed until you brought her to our attention and for that I thank you but once I informed Castiel of our new mission she dropped from our radar. Now whoever could be responsible for that?”

“Your point?” Dean asked, tensing as the angel drew closer.

“Bring her to us, she needs to be brought to justice,” Uriel said, pausing a few feet steps away from the human, “she has defied Heaven and her existence on earth is too much of a risk for her to simply be ignored If she is apprehended by the demons then they will have unfettered access to our communications. If they haven’t already been using her.”

Dean cocked his head and looked Uriel over from head to toe. There was something different about him, darker, more menacing than Castiel could ever hope to be. He was still an angel, that glow they seemed to care was there but it was dimmer somehow, rotted from the inside in a way that but his teeth on edge. How hadn’t the other angels noticed this?

“How many angels died in Hell?” Dean asked as his eyes locked on the thin chain that peeked out from the edge of Uriel’s dress shirt, “One, Zachariah, I saw him die but Cas said the angel deaths didn’t start until after he dragged me back out again. So you wanna tell me how demon that had no way of killing angels on their home turf manage it on Earth?”

Uriel’s face didn’t even twitch as he leaned in, “Your job isn’t to ask questions, your job is to follow orders. If you continue to defy us then I can just throw you back where we found you.”

“I don’t think Castiel would take too kindly to that, neither would the Fallen,” Dean said as dred began to pool in the pit of his stomach, “I’m still your goddamn Righteous Man and if I draw blood in Hell you’ve got an Apocalypse on your hands.”

“That’s the problem with Castiel isn’t it, he’s in love with you,” Uriel said, lips twitching up at the corner in a smirk, “even though you’re clearly tainted by that Fallen that had you in Hell. I question whether or not Alistair did his job.”

“Did his job?” Dean snarled, “Oh, Alistair did his job alright.”

“And yet you didn’t break, I wonder if company would encourage you to give in,” Uriel said and Dean felt his blood run cold.

That, that was a threat he couldn’t ignore, that he couldn’t just brush off. The thought of Sammy down in Hell with him - or Horae or even Castiel - was horrific, he knew he wouldn’t be able to stand even a day of that. He would fast and violent and fall into the depravity to protect them with a fury that he wouldn’t be able to come back from.

Chimera wouldn’t allow it, Dean knew that but time moved differently in Hell and he didn’t know if he’d be able to hold out long enough for Chimera to come flying to the rescue. How could he when the people he cared about were part of the incentive to get off the wrack?

“She’s not even human, not technically,” Uriel said with a smile, “Why would you want to protect something that wasn’t even a part of your own species?”

“Yeah, well she doesn’t need protecting anymore,” Dean snapped, a stroke of genius flashing across his brain, “We found the tree, grew up right were her grace crashed. She touched it and boom, full blown angel again. I guess you guys didn’t feel it because Horae’s been shielding us since we found her. She’s already fluttered off to parts unknown.”

Uriel laughed under his breath, wings flaring out in clear threat, “Well that would be a little difficult given that,” he reached inside his shirt and pulled out a veil of glowing blue white liquid on the end of that chain, “I have her grace right here.”

‘ _ Thanks for confirming that theory dipshit, _ ’ Dean thought and then made himself reach with shock.

“Why don’t you all just giver back her angel juice?” Dean snapped in genuine anger, “She’s already going half mad with her memories as it is.”

“Last chance Dean,” Uriel warned and tucked the grace back into his shirt, “bring her to us or suffer the consequences.”

And just like that Uriel vanished with a beat of his wings leaving nothing but a slip of paper fluttering in his wake. Dean stepped forward and caught it before it hit the ground, there was an address written out across it in clear lettering.


	14. Heaven Knows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Double crossing an angel is a dangerous proposition, double crossing an angel as far gone as Uriel was doubly so but he needed to be taken out of the equation and Horae was done fucking around.

“This is a bad idea,” Horae said from where she was holding Anna’s feet against the floor as the other red head did sit ups, “just seeing another angel might be enough to send you into a memory spiral and if that happens I don’t think any of us are going to want you to have your grace back, no offense.”

“None taken,” Anna said without pausing, “What was that?”

“Twenty-five, twenty-six,” Horae counted, “I’d just like my protests noted. Twenty-nine, thirty. Alright, get up, four laps.”

“They are,” Dean grumbled as Anna hopped to her feet and began to jog around the interior of the barn, “but this is our best chance at getting her grace back without getting Chimera involved.”

“Oh, Chimera might be getting involved anyway, especially given what Uriel’s done now,” Horae grumbled, tracking Anna’s progress with her eyes, “Remember to breath, your body still needs the air. Sam, what’s your opinion?’

Sam hesitated for a minute before sighing in defeat, “I agree with Dean, we need her grace back soon if we don’t want to actually get her institutionalized and this is our best bet. But Horae’s right, this is a stupid plan, we don’t even know if he’s going to show up with her grace on him.”

“Oh he will,” Dean said as Anna rounded for the last half of her third lap, “it’s the best way to ensure that no one steals it and he knows we won’t stick around for long if he doesn’t have it on him. The problem will be if he brings backup.”

“It’s a safe bet that he’ll have Castiel with him. Push-ups, thirty,” Horae told Anna and the other woman dropped to all fours, “If nothing else he’d serve as a good distraction for Dean and he’s a good hostage if we turn hostile.”

“You think he’d try to hurt Cas,” Dean latched on to that statement.

“He stole another angel’s grace. A fallen angel at that, there’s not much I don’t think he’s capable of at the moment,” Horae said and watched as Anna collapsed against the dirt, “Alright, fifteen minute break, drink some water.”

“You never said why you were making her exercise,” Sam commented.

“Exhaustion,” was the immediate reply as Horae helped Anna to her feet, “I’m trying to keep her busy so she doesn’t think and a tired brain isn’t conducive to thinking about things too hard. Tired body, tired brain or at least that’s how it works for me.”

“How much warding have you put up since we’ve gotten here?” Sam asked as he watched her heel bounce against the barns packed dirt floor, throwing up dust that clung to her boots.

“Hopefully enough,” Horae said, “I don’t relish the idea of us being here unguarded, they can sense you but I’ve got a few traps ready just in case.”

“They gonna be able to see it?” Dean asked as the air on his arms started to stand on end.

“No, Castiel is young and Uriel is weak, even if they do it’ll take time for them to read,” Horae said and squinted at the door, “they’re here.”

The brothers closed in on her in an instant, one on either side and Anna scrambled to stand behind Horae, hand clutching at the back of her shirt. The coat was draped over one of the chains of sigils Horae carved into the dirt and lay in the center of the barn. Why that one was the only one hidden the brothers didn’t know but Anna had agreed with a far off look in her eyes that had begun the exercise session.

The doors to the barn banged open and the two angels strode through them with a confidence that belied the tremble in Cas’s wings. He was nervous, maybe scared but Uriel was all cold efficiency and it set Dean’s teeth on edge. Cas shouldn’t be scared, Cas should never be scared.

“Hello, Anna,” Cas said in a resigned voice.

“ _ Castiel, it’s good to see you well _ ,” Anna said and then switched to English when Horae gave her a worried look, “Are you here to kill me?”

“No,” Castiel said, “We’re here to take you to Heaven for questioning.”

“About what?” Anna asked, “My fall? Why I fell? The Winchesters? The  _ Blessed _ ? Her Patron? What could I possibly know that Heaven doesn’t already have knowledge of?”

“Yes,” Horae drawled, “do tell, I think we all deserve to know since she’s going to lose her mind in a matter of days without access to her grace. Something which we should have been able to find within the first few hours of looking. And we did,” Horae paused before glaring at the two angels and snapping, “we found the place where it should have been! So do you want to tell me why we found an empty oak tree rather than the grace we should have?”

“Or, better yet,” Dean broke in, “who gave you the orders to track her down in the first place? Because I have a feeling you should be overjoyed at your sister’s return, not tracking her down like some fox that got into the hen house.”

“Enough of this,” Uriel said and strode forward, “give us the girl and we’ll let you go, if you don’t-”

“You’ll throw me back in the Pit,” Dean interrupted and took a few steps forward so that he was in Uriel’s face, “maybe with Sam and Horae for good measure. Now I’m no expert on Prophecy but Chimera had quite a few interesting things to say while I was down there. Things that Horae and Cas confirmed once I was topside again.”

Horae shifted on her feet, prowling sideways until she was behind Dean. Her arm was tense in preparation to grab the older Winchester if necessary but her eyes were on Cas. The younger angel’s wings were tense and still, arched towards Dean as if they wanted to snatch him out of harm’s way.

Dean continued without heeding any of it, “I’m Heaven’s Righteous Man right? Their agent on Earth, me being in Hell kind of defeats the purpose don’t you think?”

“You can be replaced,” Uriel gritted out and Castiel’s wing flinced.

Horae grabbed Dean by the collar and hauled him away from the overly hostile angel. Her other hand went to her hip where she had a sword sheathed in a black leather inlaid with red enochian.

“Just tell us why,” Horae said as she shoved Dean at his brother, “What knowledge do you need from Anna? We can probably provide it and then you can give her her grace back and be on your merry way.”

Cas spoke up as he walked forward to stand next to Uriel, “We need to know if she’s heard anything from the Fallen. And we need to know if she knows anything about our dead siblings, who might be causing their deaths. Tell us that and we will help you search for her grace.”

Horae snorted and rolled her eyes. She turned, striding back to the spot next to Dean. She turned again, spinning on her heel like it was a top before smacking her boots together with a thump.

“Oh, we know where it is,” she told him, “Anna, can you hear Chimera when you’re tapped into Angel Radio?”

“No,” Anna said with conviction, chin raised, “no, I can’t. He’s not on the same frequency as the rest of you, _ he’s not in the same Garrison _ . And before you ask, I can’t hear Lucifer either. And I don’t know anything about the deaths.”

“I can answer that one,” Horae said with a grin that lit up her entire face.

All eyes went to her in an instant. The brother’s looked shocked, Castiel looked hopeful, and Anna’s eyes were knowing but it was Uriel’s reaction that was the most telling. He looked furious as his gaze settled on the woman in front of him and her cheshire grin. That only made her grin widen into something smug and spiteful.

“Celestial steel,” she pronounced with finality, “it’s the only thing that can kill an angel. Now how would a demon get their hands on celestial steel?”

Uriel’s wings drew up in fury and Castiel’s eyes went wide at the implications.

“They can’t make it themselves, in fact the only people who do know how are god and the archangels and Luci’s all locked up isn’t he? Right, Dean?”

“Yeah,” Dean said with a smirk, “demons won’t even go down that far, say it’s too cold and those that do go down don’t come back up. Chimera might have managed it but Chimera’s a Fallen, not a demon and he would’ve cut his left wing off before he gave demons something that could kill him.”

“So that’s Chimera and Lucifer out,” Horae chirped, “Now how else could they have gotten celestial steel? Let’s see, Blessed get gifted with celestial steel but I only have four pieces,” she held up one finger, “my mask,” two more fingers, “my boot knives, boys show them the goods,” a fourth finger went up as the Winchester brothers drew her knives out from where they’d tucked them at the small of their backs, “and my sword.”

And with that Horae drew her sword, forcing Uriel and Castiel to take a few rapid steps back. Anna muffled a giggle as Horae waved her sword in a complicated little pattern that she recognized from the church attic. The Blessed raised her other hand and snapped, the sigil chain under her jacket blazing to life at the sharp crack of noise.

“Tell me, Castiel, how many of your siblings have died since I talked with you and Uriel?” Horae asked the slightly panicked looking angel.

“Three,” Castiel croaked as his wings drew inward to hunch around his shoulders protectively, “What have you done?”

“Oh, I’ve done nothing but warn you of the snake in the grass. Three? Huh,” Horae muzed as she turned her sword and stabbed it down into the soil in front of her boots, “I can’t say I’m surprised but I did warn you, I kind of expected it to stop. Well, that was my mistake.”

“Warn us of what? What snake?” Cas asked as he tried to shift to a more defensible position, wings fluffing up behind him and a blade dropping into his hand.

“All my blades are accounted for, little angel,” Horae told him with a sympathetic look before switching to Enochian, “ _ what about yours? _ ”

“What have you done?” Uriel hissed and tried to move forward only to come up short against an invisible wall of power.

“Interwoven barrier spells, two of them,” she said, “I am very good at offensive and defensive magic. My patron made sure of it, there’s so much you can do with Enochian when you put your mind to it. Not that rigid sigils crap that they teach the lower ranks but old Enochian, the kind that made this world and everything in it.  _ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. _ ”

“Blasphemer,” Uriel spat as he pressed against the barrier.

Horae threw back her head and laughed in his face before looking him directly in the eye, “I am thrice blessed by God and by his children, I am no blasphemer. I never was.”

Uriel snarled but Castiel looked at her with a question in his eyes. So they hadn’t figured out that Chimera was her Patron yet, good. The Winchesters shifted on their feet and Dean straightened to look Uriel in the eye.

“You wanna tell me why the nice lady’s looking at you with such suspicion,” Dean growled, “she said something was wrong with you back when we met you and I thought it was just you liking your job just a tad too much but now I’m starting to think it was something else.”

“You have bewitched them,” Uriel snarled at Horae.

“No,” Horae snorted in amusement, “my tits aren’t that magical, sweetheart.”

“They might be,” Dean told her.

“Shut up, Dean,” she drawled and watched Castiel’s wings flare in jealousy, “Now you’ve got the little angel trying to smite me with his eyes. Shame on you.”

“Answer the question,” Sam ordered from Horae’s left, stepping up to the barrier too.

Horae licked her lips as she watched Sam’s muscles bulge when he crossed his arms. He was pretty when he was in college but the added muscle was very much appreciated.

“Hmm, I don’t think I need it answered actually,” Horae said and looked Uriel dead in the eye, “Give up the grace and you go free.”

“What grace?” Uriel asked, wings flaring out even further.

“Don’t play dumb,” Horae rolled her eyes, “it doesn’t suit you in the slightest and I can See it hanging around your neck. It takes some looking and Castiel might not have been able to make out the difference but I can tell. Give me Anna’s grace or we’re going to have a problem.”

Uriel snarled and flapped his wings. Nothing happened and Horae watched in amusement as confusion passed across the angel’s face. She smiled in satisfaction as his wings beat again and again, stirring up dust as they battered the air.

“Performance issues?” She asked.

“What did you do?” Uriel snarled.

“I told you already, interlocking barriers, do keep up,” Horae told him.

“What does the second one do?”

“Oh, that. I clipped your wings, or well suppressed your graces’ ability to fly but it’s the same thing in the end,” Horae waved the explanation aside, “It’s pretty much the opposite of those clunky banishing sigils, I don’t know why no one’s thought of it before. And it dampens Angel Radio, we essentially fell off the grid a few minutes ago.”

“Why?” Castiel said before stepping closer to the barrier.

Horae smiled at him, a true smile as Anna inched around her towards the barrier, “I did warn him.”

Anna darted forward with the tiny iron dagger Horae had given her earlier and stuck it through the barrier to slice open Uriel’s shirt. The veil of grace winked at her through the barrier and she froze as she stared at it. Horae cursed and pulled her back so that all of her was inside the barrier milliseconds before Uriel snatched at her arm.

“Give it here, Uriel,” Horae said and held out her hand, “You do not want to make me angrier than I already am.”

“Uriel,” Castiel breathed, “why did you take it? No angel deserves to be without their grace.”

“Because she would cause too much chaos among the Host, like you are,” Uriel spat and turned towards Castiel, his own blade falling into his hand.

“Shit,” Horae hissed as the manilla winged angel lunged for Castiel.

“Cas!” Dean screamed and darted through the barrier, dropping Horae’s knife in his haste.

“Double shit,” Horae growled and dropped her own sword before lunging for Dean.

“Let me go!” Dean roared as Uriel took the first swipe at Castiel.

“Shut up, there’s a plan,” Horae told him as she reached for the part of her that was still connected to Chimera despite his best efforts to severe that link.

“He’s going after Cas! Cas!” Dean yelled.

Cas was holding his own but was clearly reluctant to hurt his brother. Uriel obviously had no qualms about that because every slash and stab was aimed to kill. She needed to do something soon or that disadvantage would get Castiel killed.

Horae grabbed at Chimera’s link and yanked. The response was instantaneous and she almost sobbed in relief as a rumble of thunder split the air. The fighting stopped as a ring of green fire appeared between the angels and the barrier. Castiel took the opportunity to back off, eyes fixed as a masked figure began to rise from the fire.

In a matter of seconds Chimera was standing in the barn facing the two angels with his hands in his pockets. Both of them looked horrified at his appearance and Uriel looked like he was about to choke on his own tongue. Dean relaxed almost instantly and Horae breathed a sigh of relief before slowly loosening her grip.

“Now what do we have here?” Chimera asked, cocking his head to the side, “Two angels determined to fight to the death, how unusual. Even though it’s been happening for the last couple of months. I wonder why.”

“Chimera,” Dean breathed and Chimera turned in apparent surprise.

“Dean! It’s good to see you again, I see you’re back with Sammy who isn’t addicted to demon’s blood, whoever did that deserves a pat on the back,” the Fallen said, “How is the party upstairs?”

“Well the sky isn’t on fire, so that’s a plus,” Dean joked.

Chimera clapped before turning back around to look at Castiel, “Excellent and that makes you Castiel, you look so much different in a human form. Oh and aren’t those blue eyes just dreamy?”

“What do you want Fallen?” Uriel spat at him and he laughed.

“You are aware that’s not an insult, right?” Chimera asked, “It’s what I am. And I thought what I wanted was obvious, for the party to keep on rocking.”

“Get to the point!” the angel snapped and Castiel edged away from him slowly.

“Rude,” Chimera scoffed and took his hands out of his pockets, an angel blade dropping heavily into his palm, “I want you-” he pointed the blade at Uriel, “-to stop killing angels and fucking with Dean. Now, normally I wouldn’t care about the killing angels part but your trying to recruit them to this whole, let’s end the world thing and that isn't something I want and now the higher ups are starting to blame it on me.”

Uriel snarled and advanced on the Fallen Angel with hatred in his eyes, “I can give you power beyond imagining, When Lucifer ri-”

“No,” Chimera said and a bolt of hellfire shot out from the tip of his blade.

Uriel melted. He didn’t burn like Azazel had but melted into the ground until all that was left was the veil of grace he’d worn around his neck like some sort of grotesque trophy.

“Well that was easy,” Chimera said and his blade vanished, “go get your grace sister.”

Anna darted out of the barrier and Horae let Dean go. Dean immediately homed in on Castiel, catching him up in a fierce embrace, barely missing getting impaled on the angel’s blade. The angel blinked in confusion for a few seconds before wrapping his arms around Dean hesitantly.

The human pulled back after a couple of seconds and planted a kiss on Castiel’s lips with zero hesitation. They stayed like that for a few moments, Castiel’s eyes wide as he kissed back before there was a sharp wolf whistle of approval from Horae and they broke apart.

Chimera was had vanished and the barrier had shimmered out of existence.

“I’m going to take that barrier down now,” Horae said as she watched Anna knock her grace back like she was drinking a shot, “and everyone might want to shut their eyes, it’s about to get very bright.”


	15. A Siren's Song

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Horae makes a mistake and takes off the mask. It goes slightly better than expected, actually no, it goes a lot better than expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, three quick warnings. One, Horae guts someone, well, a siren in this chapter. And, two, Sam and Horae have have sex in the same room as a dead body. Three, Dean sees far more than he wants and is a bit traumatized, or at least, is as traumatized as Dean can get after several decades in Hell.

Horae was tired.

Not physically tired, physically she was fine. But mentally, emotionally she was exhausted. It was a bone deep weariness that had settled deep in her chest from the moment she laid her eyes on Sam and had just kept building from that moment on.

Seeing Sam alive and well and breathing and happy was far more difficult than she had thought it would be. She’d known it would be hard but every single time Sam smiled at her it pierced her heart. She could stand it, she tried to be strong but the fact that he didn’t know who she really was.

Horae wanted to tell him, she wanted him to know but every time she tried to corner him and tell him something seemed to come up. She didn’t need kisses or affection she didn’t even need him to trust her afterwards. She just needed him to know, the guilt of him not knowing was beginning to eat her alive because they were mostly out of the woods now.

Uriel and Alistair were dead, Heaven had backed the fuck off, Castiel was around a lot more often, and Chimera had everything he needed to break Lucifer out of the freezer besides Lilith’s blood. It was almost over, Sam was almost safe, she had to tell him and if he reacted badly she could just tell Chimera to bring her back to Heaven when it was all over.

Horae wondered if she would be happy in Heaven when this was all over, now that she knew that it was fake. The memories might be pleasant but she would never be able to go back to that happy, drugged fog because she knew it was all a lie. She wondered if she’d be able to visit other people, if she could maybe she’d go looking for Mary Winchester and tell her how her sons were doing.

Maybe reincarnation was a thing, if it was then maybe she could talk Chimera into letting her be reincarnated.

She needed to stop thinking about this or she’d drive herself insane, she should just tell him, come flat out and say it, tell him who she was. But the truth was, she was scared, terrified of Sam’s reaction because that would hurt worse than any knife ever could.

And now they were on a hunt for a fucking siren, there was absolutely no way this could end well, especially since Dean was protected by Cas’s grace so there was no question about who the siren would be going after. This made Sam bitchy. Horae had been trapped in the motel room with said bitchy Winchester and had gone out to get coffee.

Halfway through the walk back she’d realized what an incredibly shitty idea that had been. She’d left Sam alone in a hotel room with a siren on the loose, how fucking stupid could she be? She’d left him vulnerable to an attack and there was absolutely no way that the siren wouldn’t be taking advantage of that.

The only saving grace was the fact that they weren’t dealing with a fucking succubus then they’d have to deal with withdrawal from her touch. But sirens were almost as bad because of the mind control elements in their saliva.

Horae’s eyes went wide and she bolted back towards the room they were staying in. She needed to get back to the room right now, if she did the siren might not have taken advantage of Sam’s isolation yet. If she was unlucky then she’d hopefully be able to snap Sam out of the siren’s spell.

She reached the door to their room quickly and paused for a second, listening before opening the door carefully. She scanned the room slowly and internally cursed when her eyes lit on Sam.

The siren was already there and she had her tongue shoved down Sam’s throat. There was absolutely no chance that Sam wasn’t under her spell now because they were definitely swapping saliva.

Horae stepped into the room and shut the door behind her. She took the time to look the siren over before the two beings on the bed noticed her. She let her sight slowly drop to actually see the bitches illusion rather than what she actually looked like underneath and nearly bit off her own tongue trying to hold back her furious scream.

The siren had strawberry blond hair that was an almost exact midpoint between what Horae’s hair had been and what it was now. She looked slightly shorter but her build was almost the exact same as Horae if a bit softer around the edges. Just from the profile Horae could see she could tell that the siren wasn’t wearing her face but it was close enough that they could have been sisters or at the very least cousins.

But the worst part might actually have been the clothes because they were, again a combination of her old and new life. A lacey, little sleep shirt that she would have loved to wear just because it made her feel pretty worn over a pair of ratty flannel bottoms that were far more practical for her current life style.

Horae was aware that she was angry, irrationally furious in a way she had forgotten she was capable of. This monster had used  _ her  _ face to get into  _ her _ motel room to seduce one of  _ her _ Winchesters. She felt her teeth clench and her fingernails bite into her flesh as her lava hot feelings began to swell in her stomach until it felt like she could breath fire if she wanted to.

She was done.

She done with hiding. She was done with the secrets. She was done with the fear that had driven her from the room in the first place and left the man she loved vulnerable to a being that took pleasure in turning men against the people they loved like some extreme version of the mean girl type you always saw in movies.

Horae stepped into the room, closed the door behind her, and bent to pull one of her knives from her boot. There was an obscene, wet noise that made her want to growl and when she straightened the siren was smiling at her. Sam was nuzzling into her neck and nipping at her jugular.

“Hello,” the siren purred as she stroked a hand down Sam’s chest.

“Sam,” Horae said as she brought her blade up in front of her, “Sam, I need you to snap out of it. Remember what we were hunting.”

Sam wouldn’t even look at her and she took a deep breath in an attempt to calm herself. She needed him to look at her if this was going to work or he’d just keep falling further and further under the siren’s spell.

“Oh, sweetie,” the siren said and laughed as Sam made his way further down her body, “you think he’s still yours? You left the poor thing all alone, like you were just asking for someone to come take advantage.”

“We had a fight,” Horae argued, eyes fixed on Sam as he nuzzled into the soft fabric, “I went to cool off and get coffee. I forgot to put up the wards because I didn’t think you were stupid enough to walk right into a hunter’s den.”

“Well,” the siren stretched languidly before pulling herself off of Sam’s lap to face Horae, “it wasn’t that hard, you really did hurt the poor dear. All I needed to do was show up all concerned,” she put clapped her hands in front of her chest and widened her eyes slightly, “‘I heard an argument and came to see if you were alright,’ it was almost too easy.”

“Sam!” Horae snapped and the Winchester’s eyes snapped to her, “That’s not her! You know that right? Can you see that? And she’s not me either!”

“Oh, he does, I’m the best of both worlds now aren’t I?” the siren said and leaned down to kiss Sam again.

Sam smiled. It wasn’t a normal smile, it was the big dopey grin that Horae had only really seen when Sam was safe and happy. She’d it rarely while they were in college but more often once they’d got together and almost never when anyone else around. She’d seen it a grand total of once since she’d been brought back to life by Chimera, the night after Dean had come back.

“Alrighty then,” Horae said, blood running cold as she reached up to touch her mask, “you’re the best of both worlds are you? Me and her mixed into one being. Alright then, Sam eyes over here.”

Sam looked over at her with a glazed look in her eye that made her stomach churn in unease. She waited for them to focus as her fingers tightened on the celestial steel because once she did this the cat was going to be well and truly out of the bag and the angels would know exactly who she was. She had no idea how they’d react given how Anna had been received.

Horae took a deep breath and yanked the mask off her face and snapping all of the Enochian warding she and Chimera had sunk into the metal. Sam’s eyes cleared for a second and went wide with awe as he took in Jessica Moore’s face for the first time in four years.

“Hey, Sammy,” Jess whispered into the air, “I’m sorry about the fight. I was just-”

The siren laughed, a loud tinkling thing that was beyond beautiful and Sam’s eyes went abruptly distant once more. Jess took a deep breath and dropped her mask to the floor.

“Oh, that’s just perfect now isn’t it?” the siren said as she stalked towards Jess, “Your the same person. Oh, Sammy, doesn’t that just make you feel like she doesn’t care?”

“Bitch, you are going to die,” There was ringing silence for a few seconds as Jess realized that those words had just come out of her mouth.

“Sammy,” the siren said, eyes going cold, “why don’t you take this betrayer aside and strangle her?”

Sam stood up and for the first time ever his height was intimidating. He was tall sure but she was five ten so he didn’t tower over her like he did most woman and she’d always found his height comforting. He could completely cover her body with his own, something that most men couldn’t and while he was a predator the only she’d seen that side directed towards her was when they were in bed.

Jess took a deep breath and braced as Sam stalked towards her. She waited as Sam drew closer and closer until he was within his reach. She ducked under his hands and eeled around his body, kicking him in the back of the knee as she lunged for the siren.

The siren shrieked as Jess tackled her to the floor.

“You fucking bitch ass little fish face!” Jess spat as the monster tried to squirm out from under her.

She moved into a half crouch and slammed her hand down on the siren’s forehead, holding her in place. Jess let her Sight rise back up and her nose wrinkled in disgust at the siren’s true visage. Her blade plunged deep into the siren’s abdomen and it cried out as the door to the room banged open.

“Sammy!” Dean yelled from the doorway and then fell silent.

“You know if you hadn’t fucking touched Sam this wouldn’t hurt as much as it’s about to,” she said and jerked the blade upwards, slicing her open from crotch to sternum.

“What the fuck?” Dean muttered as he closed the door behind him and there was some shuffling as the two brothers moved around each other.

Jessica took a deep breath and stood from her crouch, blood dripping from her blade as the siren under her choked in one last breath. Her mask was gone, that had been a stupid move, neither of the brothers had any clue who she really was and she really hoped they didn’t hate her after this.

“Horae?” Sam asked from behind her, closer than she’d thought he was and she winced, “Jess?”

She sighed and turned to look at him. Sam’s eyes full of shock and he was looking at her like he’d never seen her before in his life. Dean was standing next to him, equally as stunned but with a tinge of anger to it that made her bite her lip.

“Yeah, Sammy,” Jess whispered, eyes begging him to understand, “it’s me. I’m so, so sorry that I didn’t tell you sooner but we never had the the times. If I’d shown you before Dean came back you probably would have shot me in the face and after that there were fucking angels and-”

Sam took two long strides forward and shut her up with his mouth. It was hard and desperate and Jess melted into it like she was a sugar cube in coffee. He tasted different than he had before, harder, darker but his body was the same solid weight it had always been.

“How?” Sam croaked when he finally pulled away.

“Chimera,” Jess said simply as she stared up into his hazel eyes, “He came to my Heaven and asked me to help. He told me what would if the demons got to you before Dean got back. He said he’d give me a second chance at life, that he’d train me to be a hunter. I agreed to help, to tell you the truth he had me at Sam’s in trouble.”

She chuckled and leaned her forehead against Sam’s chest, letting the knife drop to the floor by her feet. He held her close but his grip was loose, almost like he was afraid he’d break her, like she was fine china or something.

“Why’d you hide?” Dean asked.

“If I had walked up to Sammy without that mask on while you were dead what would he have done?” Jess asked him, peeking out at his accusing eyes, “Keep in mind he was blind drunk when I met him.”

“He would have shot you in the face,” Dean said and then he blinked, “oh.”

“Yeah, oh,” she said and wrapped her arms around Sam’s waist, “Sam, I’m not made of glass, you know that. Even if I was before I’m a Blessed, I can probably take more than you can at this point.”

Sam’s arms tightened and his nose buried itself in her hair. His breath shook as they stood there. Jess smiled softly as Dean’s lips quirked up before he frowned as a thought passed across his face.

“Wait, I’ve met you before, Sam was in a relationship with you,” Dean said, “How didn’t we figure this out before?”

“The mask,” Jess explained as Sam pulled away a bit so that he could look down into her eyes, “it’s got Enochian warding on it. It’s a bit like a notice me not spell from Harry Potter. You could see me but you couldn’t really put the pieces together.”

“Awesome,” Sam whispered and kissed her again.

It was softer this time and Jess hummed, pushing up against him, arms soothing down her back and settled on the waistband of her jeans.  Her knees bent and she jumped to wrap her legs around Sam’s waist. His hands slid lower to settle under her ass and she moaned as the kiss deepened and his tongue flicked over her lips. She let him in, let his tongue slide into her mouth to twine around hers.

“Guys,” Dean said, trying to interrupt and they pulled apart, “can you not do that while I’m in the room? And we’ve got a dead body to dispose of if you haven’t noticed.”

Jess huffed and lowered her head to lie on Sam’s shoulder, “Right, I forgot about that.”

“Just, give me a minute, Dean?” Sam asked, turning on the puppy eyes, “Please? I just found out she’s alive.”

“Your hands are on her ass, Sammy,” Dean snapped.

Jessica grinned as she turned back to Sam and ground down on the bulge pressed up against her crotch, “Hey, Sammy, that a one of my knives in your pants or are you just happy to see me?”

“Oh come on!” Dean yelled and turned to bang out of the room.

Sam growled, tightened his grip, and spun on one foot. Jess laughed as he strode across the room to press her up against the wall. She moaned as he humped up against her, mouth descending on her neck, laying nipping little kisses along her jaw.

His mouth returned to hers as his hips slowed there movements. The kiss was slow and wet and lit a fire deep in Jess’s belly as his tongue caressed the inside of her mouth, sliding under hers in the way he knew froze her wild. She moaned, hands going up to fist in his hair and tug.

Sam growled, deep in his chest and the sound vibrated through her whole body. She pulled away to draw in a few quick, shallow puffs of air before diving back in.

One of Sam's hands slipped around to undo the button of her fly and yank down the zipper. Jess gasped into his mouth as he slid his long fingers over the front of her panties to cup her pussy through the cloth. Sam moaned into her mouth before pulling away from her lips.

“Wet for me already?” he asked, eyes gleaming as he ground the heel of his hand against her, “These are almost soaked through.”

“Yes,” she forced out, “it’s been four years, you smug fucking- oh, do that again!”

Sam chuckled under his breath and fastened his mouth to her neck, nips turning into sucking bites as he drew closer to her collar bone. His fingers rubbed at her clit through the cotton of her underwear drawing little moans and breathy little gasps out of her throat, playing her like she was an instrument.

Jess slid her hands out of Sam's hair and down his chest to rub over his pecs. Sam's other hand darted up from where it was groping her ass to grab them and bring them up to pin against the wall over her head.

“Sam,” she whined, “Sam, god damnit, oh, mhm, let me touch you.”

“Oh no, this is about you, Jess, I thought you were dead,” Sam said, pulling off her neck with an audible pop.

“And I want to, fuck, to touch you.”

“Then, call it revenge for not telling me who you were,” Sam smirked and slid his middle finger in past her panties to rub against her labia.

Jess bit her lip as the finger slid in, bringing his palm back up against her pelvis to grind. And then his finger curled up and she cried out, bolts of pleasure causing her body to clench down. It wasn't enough,  not by a long short.

“Sam,” she growled past gritted teeth, “if you don't get in me right the fuck now, I will- fuck!”

“That was the plan,” Sam gasped, having slid two more fingers in alongside the first, “Fuck, you're wet.”

He rubbed against her g-spot as she tried to muster up a glare. She wasn't quite managing it, eyes too glazed with pleasure to really look scary.

“Years long, oh, dry spell,” she said, bucking her hips into his hand.

“Do you care about these jeans?” Sam asked.

“No, go ahead and cut them off for all I care, just get the hell in me,” Jess told him.

Sam laughed again and kissed her again before pulling back to look at her. His hand pulled itself out of her underwear to fumble against the top of her boot. He cursed when he found it empty, startling a giggle out of Jess.

He left a stinging nip on her neck in retaliation, pulling a moan from her and forcing her hips to buck up into thin air. He fumbled for the other knife as her legs tightened around him in an attempt to grind their bodies together again. She was strong but Sam held his ground.

Jess snarled at him as he finally pulled the celestial blade from her boot. He grinned in triumph and pulled away a bit further so that he could get it between them. It sliced through the denim like it was made of air and Sam barely had to exert any pressure.

Jess remained perfectly still, only squirming when he turned the blade around to slice through his own pants.

“Be careful with that, I have plans for it,” she said as he carefully slid the very tip of the blade into the left side of his pants, where his leg met his body.

“Oh, do you now?” Sam asked and slid the blade up, neatly cutting both his pants and boxers off, “And if I’m ruining your clothes then I might as well ruin my own.”

Then he let the blade drop and moved back in to press against her. It was so much better than before, with only a thin layer of cotton separating them. Jess could feel his heat pressed up against her, long and thick and she was pretty sure she had blurred his proportions slightly because she didn’t remember him being this big.

The ground against each other for a few minutes as Sam’s hand stroked over her lower belly, just above her neatly trimmed thatch of hair. That just wasn’t fair, Sam knew she went out of her mind when he did that, the skin there was sensitive but not sensitive enough.

Jess whined in protest and writhed, trying to will her panties out of the way of his dick. Sam buried his face in her neck and groaned, deliberately slowing his grinding.

“Goddamnit, Sammy,” Jess snapped at him, “I said get in me! I want to come on your cock not-”

Sam’s thumb hooked around the edge of her panties and drew the fabric aside and there was skin rubbing against damp skin. Jess sighed and relaxed against him as his cock caught against her once, twice, three times before she snarled and shifted her hips to let him slip the first few inches of his length into her.

He froze, dick only partially in her, the veins in his neck standing out as he tried to hold himself back. Jess glared at him as he tried to slide into her as slowly as possible and then wrapped his arm around her waist to hold her in place.

“Sam, have you ever had to be gentle with me before?” Jess asked.

“No,” he said, cautiously as he finally slid home.

“Then stop being gentle,” she told him.

“Jess, you were dead less than half an hour ago,” Sam told her, locking his eyes with hers, “and Horae was untouchable. I wanted you both so badly that a siren took both your forms and twisted them up into one another. I’m afraid you’re going to turn into smoke and vanish.”

“Sam,” Jess said, “you have your dick in me, if I’m going to vanish you’re going with me. And I’m a Blessed goddamn it, I’m not going to fucking break. You don’t have to treat me like I’m made of fucking glass.”

“Je-”

“Fuck me, Sammy!” Jess snapped and bore down on her internal muscles.

Sam moaned and let his head drop to rest against the junction of where her neck met her shoulder. He let go of her wrists so he could wrap his other arm around her and she wrapped her own arms around him to cling to him like he was a lifeline.

He pulled out slowly before thrusting up into her fast and hard forcing a gasping moan out of Jess’s throat. He paused, wondering if he should ask if she was alright but was silenced by a sharp, demanding bite to his neck. That answered that question.

Sam kept going, thrusts getting faster and harder as he started to lose himself in her body. Every sound was like coming home, every sensation like a little piece of heaven on earth. Their arms tightened around one another as they drew closer and closer to their climaxes.

“Sam,” Jess gasped into his ear.

“Ye-yeah,” Sam moaned against her neck before locking his jaw around the tendons in her shoulder.

Jess’s eyes rolled up into her head and she arched up into him, everything drawing as tight as skin over a drum, shaking, she just needed one more thing to tip her over the edge. Sam was almost there too, everything but his hips locked in place as he chased after their pleasure.

They hung there for a few seconds, on the edge of oblivion before Sam shifted one of his hands down to press it down on her lower abdomen. Jess gasped for air as her g-spot was pressed harder against his cock and jackknifed over the edge.

She wasn't vocal as she came, she never had been. She'd never quite seen the point to being vocal plus religious upbringing from age fourteen, Aunt Jill hadn't taken too kindly to her niece being a sexually liberated teen.

Sam on the other hand almost screamed when he felt her inner muscles spasm in pleasure, milking his orgasm out of him with every clench and release. He only went quiet when his jaw clenched right enough to almost break skin, then relaxed as his muscles tried to go limp.

Jess sighed into Sam’s neck as they clung to one another, lifting her head to look at the body on the floor. Yup, she just had sex with a body in the room, great, that was new.

“We should really get out of here,” she commented, “and I need new pants.”

Sam’s chuckle shook him inside of her and Jess let out a small gasp as she let her legs drop. He stopped almost instantly, pulling back and out to look at her with the worried puppy face.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked.

“No,” Jess laughed, “but if you kept doing that we would have been going into round two and there is a body to deal with. And I think we’ve sexiled your brother enough for one day.”


	16. I Am The Prophet Chuck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jess is finally, utterly, done with the Supernatural books and the Winchesters have the sense to just stand back and watch her know.

Sam was watching Jess glare at the meger assortment of snacks the gas station had on offer with the sappiest puppy look Dean had ever seen. It was so adorable it made him want to gag and the guy at the register seemed to agree with him if his expression was any guess. They were an hour out from having to stop for the night but the impala needed gas for the first time in a while so they’d stopped for snacks.

That was part of the reason Jess was in such a bad mood, her sigils had apparently broken at some point and she hadn’t noticed. She’d taken exception to that and the fact that Dean wouldn’t let her renew them wasn’t helping matters.

Jess huffed, snatched up a chocolate bar, and stomped over to the small selection of books by the cash register. Dean picked up a couple bags of chips and sidled up to where Sam was standing near the drinks coolers.

“So,” Dean drawled, “she’s in a bad mood.”

“I think it’s got something to do with Chimera,” Sam sighed as his brows furrowed slightly in concern, “she doesn’t like that he’s still in Hell.”

“We got a timeline on that? I know he doesn’t like it down there. Why’s he staying?” Dean asked.

“Lucifer,” Sam sighed.

“Lucifer? I thought he was a myth taught in demon sunday school,” Dean said.

“Apparently not,” Sam said, “Jess says Chimera’s trying to figure out if we can break him out without ending the world.”

Dean whistled under his breath because if they managed that they’d be able to take a powerful piece off the chessboard. If the Fallen could keep Satan in check then they’d have a lot less to worry about, at least on Hell’s side of things. But that still left a couple of questions.

“We sure that he’s sane enough to reason with, humans in solitary go coo coo for cocoa puffs after a few weeks,” Dean pointed out with a frown, “I don’t even want to think about how long the Devil’s been in lock up.”

“Yeah,” his brother sighed and rubbed one hand over his face, “but if we can get him on side then that's half the apocalypse taken care of. With Hell out of the fight...”

“We might actually have a chance,” Dean muzed as Jess made a furious sound and tossed her items on the counter in front of the cash register, “you alright Jess?”

“Peachy,” Jess said, slapping a wad of bills onto the counter, “I’ll be in the impala.”

“Well then,” Dean said and then turned to point at Sam, “You’re getting her off when we stop for the night.”

Sam almost dropped the bottle of water her had in his hand. Dean had not just said that. He stared at the completely serious expression on Dean’s face. Dean had just said that.

“What the fuck, Dean?” he asked.

“Dude, it’s been a week since we found out and you two haven’t been getting a seperate room or sharing showers. She’s frustrated, I know I taught you better than this, Sammy.”

Sam made a choked off, horrified noise in the back of his throat before glancing at the cashier, who was pointedly not paying attention to them. Then he turned back to his brother and hissed, “No, she isn’t and like you’ve got room to talk, you’ve barely even kissed Cas since you grabbed him in the barn. And don’t call me Sammy!”

“Sammy,” Dean sighed and put a hand on Sam’s shoulder, “you’re a screamer and unless you’ve managed to somehow get her off under the table without me noticing you’ve left her hanging for a week. And I’m waiting for Cas to make a move.”

“Dean, he’s an angel, he probably has no idea what humans do with romantic partners beyond kiss!” Sam whispered and then glanced out the window at the impala, “We should pay and get out of here, I don’t like leaving her on her own.”

“Jesus, Sam, could you be any more of a helicopter boyfriend?” Dean asked.

They paid and wandered back out to the impala, situating themselves in their seats just in time for Jess to make a furious little noise. Sam turned to watch her flip to the end of her book, eyes narrowed to slits.

“Oh, he wouldn’t dare,” she hissed as Dean started the engine.

“New Supernatural book?” Sam asked, brows furrowing because it had barely been a handful of weeks since the last book had dropped.

Jess held up one finger as her gaze tore across the page, “I make no allowances for quality but he is a prolific- oh that is it!”

Sam blinked in confusion as Jess chucked the book at the windshield and dove for her bag. He caught the book as Dean started to curse and Jess stabbed angrily at her phone’s screen. He’d managed to catch it right where she’d stopped reading and he glanced at the page.

_ One of Sam's hands slipped around to undo the button of her fly and yank down the zipper. Jess gasped into his mouth as he slid his long fingers over the front of her panties to cup her pussy through the cloth. Sam moaned into her mouth before pulling away from her lips. _

_ “Wet for me already?” he asked, eyes gleaming as he ground the heel of his hand against her, “These are almost soaked through.” _

Sam felt his brain short circuit, leaving him with only a blue screen of death behind his eyes as he stared blankly at the page in front of him. He felt violated, like some random guy on the street had walked up and slid their hand down his pants.

“What?” Sam asked, blinking violently as he tried to process the words on the piece of crisp, freshly printed paper.

“He has gone too far!” Jess roared into her phone.

“Jess,” Chimera sighed for them all to hear, she’d apparently put him on speaker phone.

“Don’t you Jess me, Chimera! I put up with his bad writing! I put up with my death being plastered front and center across the first book! I actually find the fandom amusing! But this! This is too far!”

“Jess, he’s a Prophet,” Chimera tried to sooth past what sounded like suppressed laughter.

“I wouldn’t fucking care if he was God himself!” Jess screamed as they pulled onto the highway, “He’s brought my sex life into this! This! Means! WAR!”

“What the fuck?” Dean asked and snatched the book out of Sam’s hand, reading the back of the book jacket.

“Eyes on the road!” Sam snapped as Dean began to swear, loudly and creatively.

“Jess-” Chimera started before being cut off.

“Just give me the fucking address,” Jess sighed, sounding so tired that it made Sam’s heart hurt.

Chimera sighed and rattled the information off, sounding both resigned and utterly irritated with the world in general. Ending with a sharp “don’t kill him”.

“I’m not an idiot, Chimera,” Jess told him and hung up.

“Jess, what the fuck?” Dean asked, “You’ve known about this for a while. Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Because it wasn’t relevant and how would I have brought it up?” Jess asked as she dragged her bag up into the seat next to her.

“I don’t know, you could have just told us,” Dean said as he glanced at her in the rearview mirror.

“Probably,” Jess admitted, “but this is the first time that we’ve gotten a chance to breath since you got pulled from the Pit. And it’s the first time that Prophet has actively stepped over the line, he could have just faded to black for fuck sake.”

“What about the four months before Samhain?” Sam asked, watching Jess rummage through her bag for one of the books.

“Lazarus Rising calls out my identity, at least indirectly,” Jess told him as she pulled out the first volume of Supernatural and flipped through the pages, “Here it is, ‘ _ Chimera had told Dean that he had someone on Earth watching Dean and here she was. But she was familiar, he’d seen her before and he didn’t know where _ ’ and then on the last few pages there’s a phone conversation I had with Chimera that implies that I knew Sam at Stanford. You two are smart Dean, you would have figured it out eventually.”

“And why couldn’t you just tell us who you were, again?” Dean asked.

“Too little time, I didn’t know if you’d punch me in the face,” she said, ticking off reasons on her fingers, “I didn’t want the angels to know quite yet, Chimera wasn’t ready to spring the sun butt yet, I can go on if you want.”

“No, we’re good,” Dean sighed, “we’re stopping at the next motel.”

“Can I read that?” Sam asked, reaching over the seat for the book.

 

~*****~

 

“Okay, the community around our lives is fucking huge,” Dean muttered as he stared at the computer screen, “There’s Sam girls and Dean girls and the general consensus on Horae is that she’s an ultra badass and what’s a slash fan?”

“As in Sam slash Dean,” Sam said, sounding incredibly uncomfortable with the entire idea, “together.”

“As in together together,” Sam nodded, “they do know we’re brothers right? And that your in love with Jess and about me and Cas.”

“Hey, that pretty much stopped after Lazarus got released,” Jess piped up from where she was lounging across one of the beds.

“Yeah, because you and Cas showed up,” Sam said, “there’s porn about you and Dean, I’m vaguely uncomfortable with that.”

“Oh,” Dean startled and they looked at him expectantly, “there’s a link to… okay, I did not need to see that!”

Dean slammed the laptop closed and turned to glare at Jess. She took one look at his face and broke down laughing.

“You found the fan art didn’t you?” She asked and giggled when Dean nodded, “I can show you the porn they’ve drawn of me and Cas if you want.”

“Wait, what?” Sam said and stared at her with horrified eyes, “There’s porn of you and Cas?”

“And of me and you, and of me and Dean, and of me and Chimera,” Jess pause for effect, “and of all of us together in a polyamorous free for all.”

“What is wrong with people?” Dean snapped and stood to pace.

Jess spread her arms wide, “Welcome to Fandom, at least I’m not related to you two. I shudder to think what people would be writing about if you two had a sister or if one of you was a girl. Actually, never mind there is a subset of fandom that writes about what would've happened if one of you was a girl.”

“Oh for fucks sake,” Sam breathed and rubbed at his face in irritation.

“Alright,” Dean said, fists on his hips, “lets go talk to him.”

The drive to the prophet’s house was mostly silent as Sam read through one of the books and Jess took a look at the incredibly positive reception her identity had received. She hadn’t expected that, she’d expected outcries of betrayal, of her being nothing more than a manipulative witch but apparently the fan base had craved female representation and the fact that she was Sam’s girlfriend from Stanford had been met with cries of “true love” and “destiny”.

At least no one knew who Chimera was yet, that hadn’t been included in the books, much to Jess’s relief. Sam and Dean didn’t need to know about that just yet, they needed to deal with the Apocalypse first.

Dean was the one who rang the doorbell and the door opened after a few moments of the Prophet banging around his living room. The door finally opening to reveal a scruffy man wearing a multicolored robe and smelling strongly of alcohol.

“You Chuck Shurley?” Dean asked.

“The Chuck Shurley who wrote the Supernatural books?” Sam asked.

“Maybe,” the Prophet said, looking them over and then his gaze riveting itself to Jess, “Why?”

“I’m Dean,” Dean said and then gestured at Sam and Jess, “this is Sam and Jess. The Winchesters you’ve been writing about.”

“Oh shit,” Chuck whispered, eyes going wide as he tried to back up.

“Oh, Dean, don’t beat around the bush,” Jess said, took a step forward and punched Chuck in the nose, “You could have faded to black you fucking asshole!”

“Jess!” Sam cried out in shock and grabbed her around the waist as the Prophet stumbled back, tripping over his own feet to go sprawling on his ass.

“It, it’s alright,” Chuck stuttered as he teared up, “I think I deserved that.”

“Yeah, for plastering my sex life all over a trashy drugstore novel,” Jess snapped at him, “At least you got better at writing porn, but my tits are now all over the internet.”

“No, they aren’t, you two barely got your pants off,” Chuck bemoaned.

“I didn’t need to know that,” the elder Winchester muttered, “Can we come in?”

Chuck gestured in clear invitation before getting up to go looking for alcohol. Jess followed him, arms crossed in irritation, the brothers trailing behind her. After the Prophet had a scotch in hand he turned to face them.

“I never put your last name in the books,” he said and took a fortifying swallow of liquor, “and if I’d known you were real people I would have stopped. I definitely would have faded to black, Horae can throw a punch. I am so sorry.”

Jess nodded, “Apology accepted but if you go writing about my sex life again I will do worse than punch you.”

“You don’t care when it’s the fans!” Chuck protested.

“The fans don’t actually know what I look like naked!”

Silence for a few moments as the berobed man tried to calm down.

“Am I actually a Prophet?” Chuck asked her.

“Chimera says so and I trust him to know stuff like this,” Jess told him before turning back towards the two brothers, “you two go get the laundry done, I need to talk to him in private. Do you have the newest manuscript done? They can read some of it while they do the laundry.”

The Winchesters went off with marginal grumbling but were mostly still trying to wrap their heads around the whole Prophet thing. Once they were alone Jess turned to Chuck.

“Are you God?” she asked, bluntly.

“No,” Chuck replied, shaking his head vigorously, “no, I’m… any Prophet can be his vessel but he burned me out in the original timeline.”

“Good, because I would have gutted you if you were,” Jess told him before flopping down on the couch, “You know about Chimera then? And Lilith? And Luci? And the whole clusterfuck with Michael?”

“Yes,” Chuck said and took another swig from his glass, “it’s not in the books yet, it was supposed to be one big reveal in the next one.”

“I don’t want to know,” Jess said, “all I need to know is… Do we win? Do we live? Do I…”

“Yes, you and Sam live, you all live and Chimera-” Chuck started.

“I don’t need to know that,” Jess’s voice was filled with barely contained sorrow, “he’ll tell me who it is when he’s ready. He’ll tell me who he is when he’s ready. All I need to know is if they make him happy.”

“They do,” Chuck confirmed, “he still loves you, you know.”

“But, he’s not in love with me,” Jess said.

“Nope and by the way, Lilith’s about to show up so you might-”

There was a crash from another room and Jess sat up abruptly, rolling to her feet in one smooth movement and crouching in front of Chuck. The near silence was tense as a figure came around the kitchen door. She was tall and slender with a white dress draped over her, a parody of innocence. She was blonde and again, looked slightly like Jess which didn’t piss her off anymore for some reason.

“Call Chimera,” Jess growled, tossing her phone at Chuck and pulling both celestial blades from her boots.

This was going to suck. She had to be careful not to kill the other woman but couldn’t let her get close enough to Chuck for it to trip Raphael’s Prophet sense.


	17. Lucifer in Chains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucifer was lonely, all the Fallen were dead and angels were never meant to be alone... And then there was a presence outside the Cage.

Lucifer was lonely, oh so lonely.

It hadn’t been this bad before, even though he was cut off from most of the Host he still had his personally garrison. It hurt, not being able to hear Gabriel or Michael or Raphael, or any of the myriad of siblings that had chosen not to side with him but he could bare it. Barely and with great difficulty but he could bare it, he could stand it because he knew that he was in the right.

Humanity was in its infancy and he might not have hated it but he would not bow to them. He would not hold them above his Father, he could not do that, it wasn’t in his nature and Father should have known that when he asked.

His Father hadn’t listened but when had He ever? Instead He had tried once more to convince Lucifer to kneel down. He told of him a soul that would belong to Lucifer, the most beautiful soul of all, one that would be his and only his.

Lucifer had been tempted, purely for that. A gift, from his Father, the first gift he had ever received. But no, no Lucifer had held his ground and some of his kin had stood from where they knelt, refusing along with him.

There had been a moment of joy, pure, unadulterated joy that welled up in him until it came out in a triumphant note of music.

And then they were all struck down as one, into the Pit, the deepest recess of Hell and by the time they had dragged themselves out most of their wings had been turned to Hellfire, burning eternally, marked by their Fall. By the end Lucifer’s were the only wings untouched by the flames and he bore that fact like a badge of shame.

He was the one to get them into this and they bore the scars for it! How was that just? But, oh no, his Father couldn’t let Lucifer’s perfect wings burn.

Eden was a mistake, Lucifer knew that now. Gadreel… he had heard about what had happened to Gadreel and he had sent someone to try and save him. He couldn’t regret that, Gadreel deserved to be free but he regretted the war it sparked.

He regretted the deaths of his Garrison and deaths of the fledglings that had been sent to oppose them. Fledglings who had died on his Garrison’s blades, fledglings who had fled to his side and been hunted down like dogs for treason. Fledglings that were now dead.

His Garrison died, slowly, one by one by one until they were almost all gone and locked back in Hell as human shells, corrupted and twisted into demons. The few who got out had ripped out there own grace and wound up right back where they started as a human soul or been killed as soon as they set foot on the planet.

They’d been whittled down and down until it was only Azazel left. And then Sam had been born and his soul had been bright and beautiful and just out of reach until one day Lucifer could touch it and he was content to immerse himself in the only two things left outside of his Cage.

And then Sam died and he screamed of years and years but then he was back and Azazel was dead and Lucifer clung with all his might because if he let go then he would lose himself.

But now, now the loneliness was starting to eat at him.

Angels weren’t meant to be alone, Lucifer had never been alone. He’d always had the other archangels and Father, even before the other angels were created. And now, all he had was one tiny human soul to cling to.

He almost missed the presence when it appeared outside of his Cage. It was faint and familiar, partially hidden through the bars of the Cage. He reached out to it, pressing against the bars in an attempt to get closer.

“ _ Hello? _ ” Lucifer asked, almost not believing what he was feeling.

And then a voice answered, a beautiful, powerful voice that spoke in a human language, “Hello, Archangel Lucifer… Brother.”

“ _ Brother _ ,” Lucifer gasped, pressing his entire body against the wall of the Cage, trying to get as close as possible to the Hellfire and grace of the Fallen on the other side, “ _ Brother, Brother! I can’t believe- Brother!” _

“Shh,” the Fallen murmured and wormed fingers through the bars to touch Lucifer’s grace, “ _ it’s alright, Brother. It’s alright, calm down, I’m here. _ ”

Lucifer clutched at that barest brush of grace against grace, it had been so long since he had touched another angel. The Fallen hadn’t dared to come down here since he had been Caged by his Father. Lucifer didn’t recognize the grace, it was different from the other Fallen, like it was a mix of Hell, Heaven, and something else, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

“ _ What is your name, Brother? _ ” Lucifer asked as he curled around that touch of grace, laser focused on the Fallen outside his Cage, “ _ I don’t recognize you. _ ”

“ _ My name is Chimera _ ,” the Fallen said, “ _ I was… not made in the conventional way. _ ”

“ _ How? _ ” the Archangel asked and to tell the truth he didn’t really care but he needed the Fallen to keep talking, he and Sam were all he had and Sam couldn’t talk to him.

“ _ It would be easier if I just showed you _ ,” Chimera said hesitantly before pressing in slightly further, “ _ May I? _ ”

“ _ Yes _ ,” Lucifer replied, almost before the last word was uttered. Yes, yes, it was always yes, anything for him, anything at all, anything that would let him feel that touch of grace for just a second longer.

The memories hit him like a tidal wave, two sets of them, two people in possession of them but no, that was wrong they weren’t two people, not anymore. Lucifer saw the demon blood and felt the connection to Sam cut off as it burned out the Fallen, warped it until Lucifer couldn’t touch him anymore and then there was nothing.

Just him and the Cage and the silence which seemed to consume all it touched.

But there were also Sam’s memories, of Ruby, of the blood, of the desperation that clung to his every muscle and nerve. The joy of seeing Dean again, the curiosity and desire for knowledge when the angels showed up. The grief and betrayal of realizing all the angels hated him.

Fury bloomed in Lucifer’s grace at that, his Sam was beautiful and powerful and strong and no one should scorn that. Chimera’s grace laughing against his own as he pushed more memories through where they touched.

Lucifer watched his own rise but that wasn’t him anymore, centuries upon centuries of loneliness with only his mission to cling to driving his mind to spiral into the darker sides of his personality. It made him shiver as he watched Sam try to stop him, clawing hand over hand against the hurricane pull of fate.

And then…  Gabriel. Gabriel almost broke him, had broken the other him, shattered him into a thousand pieces as he stood over the body.

The deaths of any of his brothers would have been painful, would have hurt like a knife to the gut but Gabriel’s death was worst. Gabriel was different, closer than the others, more connected to Lucifer and his disappearance had been devastating. The quiet fo the connection half the reason Lucifer had spiraled so quickly.

Lucifer had raised Gabriel, taught him how to fly, taught him everything he knew. He’d taught him the trick he’d tried to use against him and Lucifer had watched in horror as Gabriel was just that millisecond off.

A millisecond. A fucking millisecond, that was all took for his counterpart to kill rather than wound.

He watched numbly as Sam came back for Gabriel’s body, as he buried him, as he mourned. His counterpart mourned too, he went on a rage filled demon hunt across the planet, killing any and all demons who stepped into his path. The highlight of the week being when he managed to ferret out Crowley.

The little bastard tried to run but Lucifer was an angel and caught him as easily as breathing.

Then, Dean died and Lucifer felt Sam’s grief rip across the ether but the sigils that Castiel had carved into the brothers ribs still hid them from his sight. He had wanted to go to Sam, to comfort him but he couldn’t. It was utterly infuriating and the rage in his had abruptly cooled as the weariness of centuries alone pressed down on his shoulders.

He was burning through his vessel faster than before. He could feel Michael’s wrath sturing as it rotted around him, he was barely hours away from bursting his body like it was a blister.

Lucifer needed Sam if this was going to end well but he couldn’t find him and then it hit him. He couldn’t feel Sam but Castiel would be with them if he was still alive because that little angel didn’t know when to give up, Lucifer had enough memories of him during the Fall to know that. And while Lucifer can’t sense Sam, he can still search for Castiel’s grace.

He finds them in the middle of a junkyard, holding a funeral for the Righteous Man. There were people there, more people than he could safely deal with at this point, if he used any grace at all he ran the risk of burning everything in a mile radius as his vessel finally gave out. So he waited, waited for everyone but Sam and Castiel to leave and then he speaks up.

His brother’s death wasn’t all that surprising when he came to think of it. Dean was dead, Castiel was falling in a slow creeping way, his connection to the Host being severed strand by strand, and Sam was going to say yes.

He doesn’t though and the memories cut off as Lucifer’s throat is slit and Sam’s mouth latches on to the wound like a starving babe at its mother’s breast. It should burn Sam, the grace should burn him up from the inside out in one blazing second of purity and glory but it doesn’t.

It feels like a miracle but it couldn’t be. Lucifer’s grace and blood flow into Sam like it was made for him and it was but not like this, never like this. It was wrong in all the right ways and right in all the wrong ones. And then it was just Sam’s memories flowing into him as Michael appeared.

They cut out when Sam’s eyes fell on Gabriel’s favorite flower and Lucifer could feel his grace tremble against Chimera’s.

“ _ You _ ,” Lucifer breathed and then stopped before starting again, “ _ Sam, I’m so so- _ ”

“ _ It’s not your fault _ ,” Chimera snapped, sending waves of calm through where their grace connects, “ _ If you’re going to blame anyone blame your dad. Now, do you actually want to end the world or are you going to act like an adult when I let you out _ ?”

“ _ And if I do want to end the world? _ ” Lucifer asked, genuinely curious about the response.

“ _ Then, I’ll leave your ass here, _ ” Chimera told him and Lucifer had no doubt that he would.

And Lucifer pondered the question for a moment. Did he want to end the world? End humanity and go toe to toe with Heaven? If this was a few millennia ago then the answer would be yes but now…

Sam was a beautiful shining soul that called out to him across planes of existence and if humanity could make Sam then maybe it was worth while. Was everyone like Sam? Were they better? Worse?

Lucifer just didn't have enough information to determine whether or not he wanted humanity gone. He'd been stuck in Hell for the last however long and the Fallen hadn't exactly been too interested in evaluating human kinds worth. They'd been too busy fleeing Heaven’s wrath when they managed to crawl out of the Pit.

“ _ I do not know, _ ” Lucifer told Chimera in all honesty, “ _ I have been in Hell for almost as long as Humanity has existed. I am unfamiliar with the state of the planet or the Host. _ ”

“ _ You would not be pleased with the actions of the Host, especially not Uriel, _ ” Chimera murmured absently as he trailed his hand along the Cage, slowly walking around it, tracing the symbols etched into the metal, “ _ Is this celestial steel? _ ”

“ _ Yes, it is and from what you have showed me, no, I wouldn’t, _ ” the archangel said as he followed Chimera with his grace, “ _ Tell me, are you why I can still feel your past self? Why I have not gone insane with the silence? _ ”

“ _ Oh, you can thank my Blessed for that, _ ” Chimera said, pausing, “ _ this is latin, why is it latin? This- ah, there’s something under it. That makes far more sense. _ ”

“ _ There’s a Blessed on Earth. We have a Blessed, _ ” Lucifer’s shock poleaxed him, there was someone else, someone besides Sam and Chimera, someone who was theirs, part of their Garrison even if they were human.

Chimera paused and his grace dimmed slightly, “No. No, Lucifer…  _ My Blessed, not yours, she may have a connection to you but we do not have the same grace. Mine is twisted around a demon’s blood and a human soul. It’s warped and twisted and I have no right to claim any kinship with you. I’m an abomination and- _ ”

“ _ Those are Michael’s words! _ ” Lucifer snapped, interrupting Sam’s words and his slowly dimming grace, “ _ And Michael was always a fool! His head so far up Father’s ass that he could see my sun from the other side! You are a beautiful being, my only hope in my last life and carried and cared for me in this life! How can you think you are worthless! _ ”

“ _ Found it, _ ” Chimera whispered and pushed his hellfire across the cage, melting away the latin to reveal the Enochian ritual underneath.

Chimera had only left his side briefly since that first meeting to go get supplies for the ritual or, on two memorable occasions, to go squash a threat to his Blessed under his boot heel. Lucifer looked through his eyes when he did leave, their gracelink close enough that they were more than an individual but less than twins, allowing Lucifer to see what Chimera saw.

He saw Uriel and Alistair burn. He saw Castiel and Dean kiss. He saw Sam and Anael and Horae. He saw earth and its people. He saw the changes that millenia upon millenia can bring on such short lived creatures.

He saw depravity and cruelty and lies. He saw love and joy and kindness. He saw the good and the bad and the potential hiding under every single human’s skin. He witnessed humanity for the first time since the beginning.

And for the first time in millenia he was content as he watched from his Cage in the depths of Hell, loneliness fading further away moment by moment but still there, still nagging at him.

And as he watched humanity through Chimera’s eyes he fell in love for the second time in history.


	18. Gabriel and Anna

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel finally shows up and Anna bitch slaps Michael in the face.

Gabriel stared at the scene in front of him in shock and abject horror at sight in front of him. There was a demon in the Prophet’s living room…

THERE WAS A DEMON IN THE PROPHET’S LIVING ROOM!

Where the fuck was Raphael? Why wasn’t he interfering with the travesty that was surely about to take place? There was a Blessed there as well but still.

Wait, there was a Blessed. Why was there a Blessed and why did her soul look so familiar?

Gabriel hesitated as the Prophet fumbled with the Blessed’s phone, she might be able to handle this. She had a celestial steel blade which was another mystery all together but this was Lilith, the first of all demons. The only thing that could make this worse would be a Fallen.

Luckily those were all dead.

“Hello, little angel touched,” Lilith purred as she stepped further into the room., “Are you prepared to die?”

“No, I am not,” the Blessed told her, eyebrows rising to her hairline, “so, are you enjoy not having to run around avoiding Sammy’s wrath.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” the demon drawled, “you’ve just gone about fucking up everyone’s plans now haven’t you. Heaven’s not too happy about that and neither am I.”

The Blessed snorted in amusement before straightening, “Alright then, we’re doing this the easy way since I don’t have to worry about an Archangel smiting my ass.”

“I had it all planned out you know,” Lilith sneered as the Blessed sheathed her blade, “break little Sammy’s heart with the Hounds, send Ruby in to get him hooked on her blood, and drive him into a rage until he tracked me down. And then you and that  _ Fallen _ fucked it all up. The Righteous Man didn’t break so the first seal is still intact, you killed the little bitch before she got within breathing range of her target, and now there’s talk of our Father no longer wishing to uphold his end of the deal.”

Gabriel froze, lips pursed around the lollipop in his mouth as he processed that rant. There was a Fallen still living in Hell. Lucifer didn’t want to end the world. This… this might not end in disaster, the world might not end, his family might not have to tear each other to pieces.

“Is Winchester’s dick really that good?” Lilith spat, “Does his cock erase people’s common sense? Or does it add omnipotence? Because there is absolutely no way that you were able to figure out my plans from questioning anyone since Ruby and Azazel were the only ones that knew the plan.”

“Ah, do you want to take a ride?” the Blessed mocked, arms spread wide as the call the Prophet was making finally connected.

“But what I really want to know is why do you stink of Hell?” Lilith smiled, wide and predatory, “Could it be that you aren’t angel touched after all? Jessica Moore.”

“Alrighty then, folks,” Gabriel chirped as he clapped his hands sharply together, startling everyone in the room, “let’s wrap up this cat fight shall we? And get the demon away from the Prophet of the Lord? Deal, good.”

Gabriel raised his fingers to snap, extending his grace to curl around the demon in front of him at the same moment. He wouldn’t explode her but yanking her into a pocket dimension where no one else would be capable of finding her felt like the best option at the moment.

A hand closed around his, foreign grace curling to snatch his away from Lilith, pinning it inside him. Panic raced up Gabriel’s spine as he turned to look at the blank visage of a black porcelain mask.

“I’m sorry but I need that, brother,” the Fallen said and smiled and fuck that was a gorgeous smile.

The Fallen was tall and muscular and looked like he could bench press Gabriel. His hand was long and a gorgeous shade of brown that looked like molten milk chocolate. His skin was warm and his grace was gentle where it pinned Gabriel’s under it.

And this was a really bad time to pop a boner but the feel of another angel’s grace against his was overwhelming and the vessel wasn’t all that bad either.

Gabriel pulled away from the Fallen, trying to quash the emotions rising in his chest. The grace stayed wrapped around his, preventing him from going for the demon standing far too close to the Prophet for Gabriel’s taste but not pinning his wings to prevent escape. It was gentle and strangely warm, more comfortable than it had any right to be.

“And who might you be?” Gabriel asked and snapped, expelling a minimal amount of grace to conjure a candy bar.

“Chimera, at your service,” the Fallen said and bowed, hair tumbling over his shoulder, “and the name you would prefer?”

Gabriel cocked his head to one side, “Why do I get the feeling that you already know my name?’

“That’s not what I asked,” Chimera straightened, the smile on his face tender as he turned back to the other three in the room and the horrified look on Lilith’s face, “Lilith, what a pleasant surprise. You really, really shouldn’t have come here.”

Lilith straightened up, quivering in fear and defiance, “You have ruined years upon centuries of plans laid down by beings far more-”

“Oh, shut up, will you?” the Blessed snapped and lunged for her, tackling the other woman to the ground.

Chimera sighed in contentment, “This is why I love you, Jess.”

“Hell yeah, you love me! I’m Queen Bitch!” she called over her shoulder as she wrestled the flailing demon into a headlock, “Hold still! This won’t hurt a bit!”

“Jess, Jess, Jess,” Chimera tisked as he glided towards the two woman on silent feet, “lyings a sin now isn’t it?’

Jess snorted as she pinned Lilith with visible effort, “Oh, like you care about sin, I’ve seen your porn stash, Chimera, you are by no means innocent.”

“Jess!” Chimera hissed at her, a flush rising high in his cheeks, “Not in front of the pagan!”

Gabriel snorted, eyes dropping to watch the Fallen’s glorious ass as he went, “Oh, Fallen, don’t make me blush I’m nothing special, just an everyday trickster.”

Chimera snorted as he crouched in front of the two woman on the floor, “We both know that's not true. Now, Lilith, hold still, this will only hurt a lot.”

Lilith spat in his face, a glob of spit landing squarely where his eye would be if he wasn't wearing a mask. The Fallen just sighed and twirled a small crystal veil into existence. Gabriel rolled his eyes because how stupid did you have to be to try and pick off something more powerful than you?

“What can you do you mulling pustule?” the demon hissed, “If you kill me then the final seal never breaks and you'll never get a taste of Heaven ever again.”

“You know,” the Fallen muzed, “I never understood why demons never did their damn research.”

“What?”

“I don't want the apocalypse, little demon,” Chimera said with a smug smile, “I don't want the world to end, creations best party is up here. Why would I want it to end?”

“A man after my own heart,” Gabriel quipped as he leaned against the wall behind him, “Whatcha gonna do about her?”

Chimera smiled at him over his shoulder and wing before turning back to the demon. A claw slipped out of his finger and he gently pricked the skin of her neck, drawing only a few drops of blood. He caught them in the veil before they could even run down her neck.

“You are an idiot, Lilith,” he told the demon as she tried to squirm away, “Coming after a Prophet was stupid, but a Blessed, my Blessed. That was just plain suicidal.”

A chill went up Gabriel’s spine as the Fallen stood in a smooth move that read as pure predator. Chimera’s Blessed. A Fallen had a Blessed. What the hell? Gabriel hadn’t even know that was possible.

The veil vanished into the air with a ripple of too pure grace, almost untouched by hellfire. There was something off here, something not quite right or, perhaps, too right. There was a Fallen in the same room as a Prophet and the only thing, the only person in the room, setting Gabriel’s senses on edge was the demon.

And he had a Blessed.

“Do you want to or should I?” Chimera asked and it took a second for Gabriel to realize that the other angel was talking to him.

Gabriel ruffled his wings and Chimera’s eyes trailed up to them, going sad around the edges. Strange, the look was one of mourning rather than envy Gabriel was used to when angels first saw his six wings.

“They really do look like gold,” the Fallen whispered and then shook himself out of his revelry.

Gabriel blinked slowly before shaking himself and giving him a cocky smile, “Don’t let me steal your thunder, sweetheart.”

Chimera smiled and turned to gesture his Blessed out of the way. Jessica Moore, wasn’t she dead, let go of the demon and flowed out of the way as a ball of hellfire gathered in the Fallen’s hand.

“I could give you-” Lilith started to say, trying to scramble away, eyes flicking between white and blue as she tried to smoke out of her body.

Jessica threw one of her blades to pin the edge of Lilith’s dress and Chimera snorted, “No, you couldn’t. Now shut up.”

Lilith burned from the inside out, screaming and writhing in pain as her skin cracked, revealing swirling black smoke just under the surface. The smoke crackled and fizzled as green flame crept along it, eating the essence of the demon as it went.

“I’m gonna be sick,” the Prophet whispered. He ran from the room, Jess following closely behind with a look of mild concern on her face.

She paused in the doorway as the screaming stopped and turned to look back at Chimera, “Is it over?”

“Yes, all we need to worry about is the future,” he said and then turned back towards Gabriel, “You can run off now if you want, or stay here and guard the Prophet since his other guard is clearly indiquit.”

The grace holding Gabriel’s in place loosened slowly before dropping away entirely. The archangel stretch languidly before pushing off the wall to walk up to Chimera.

“Oh, I think I’d be better off following you, cream puff,” he drawled with a lewd grin.

The faint blush in Chimera’s cheeks burned brighter for a few seconds before the Fallen grinned in amusement, “Then, come with me if you want to live.”

“Did you just quote the Terminator?” Gabriel asked.

The only response he got was a grin and a flap of fiery wings. He blinked at the empty space in front of him before cursing and taking off after the brunette. There was no way this Fallen had been an angel, he knew too much about humanity.

But that left the question of what exactly he was.

 

~*****~

 

“How long have you been in here?” a smooth, feminine voice asked and shock thrummed through Michael’s grace.

He turned, refocusing for the first time in a long while to look at Anael where she stood by the entrance to the throne room. She looked good, less dark than she had before she vanished and her blood red wings were healthily sleek in a way they hadn’t been since the Fall.

“ _ Anael _ ,” he breathed as he took in the vessel she was inhabiting, “ _ you have returned. _ ”

“ _ Michael _ ,” she says and it’s only then that he realizes that she hadn’t been speaking Enochian before, “ _ How long? How long have you been here kneeling by Father’s throne rather than out there leading Heaven? _ ”

“ _ You dare- _ ” Michael started and Anael hissed at him, wings spreading wide in a blatant display of aggression that gave him pause.

“ _ Do you have any clue what Raphael has been doing in your absence? _ ” the other angel snapped as she moved to stand directly in front of Michael, “ _ What Uriel has done? How many of our siblings have fallen to his blade? Or, have you been losing yourself in despair since I ripped out my grace? _ ”

“ _ The apocalypse is nigh, Anael, _ ” Michael told her as he reached out to lay a hand over Anael’s wings in an attempt to sooth, “ _ My brother is coming to destroy the world and I will have to fight him. I don’t want to but Father has decreed it. Gabriel is gone, Raphael is broken, too many of our siblings have died in the fight with Hell. I am tired, Anael. So very- _ ”

There was the crack of grace against grace as Anael reached up and slapped Michael across the face. The archangel drew back in shock as the smaller angel glared up at him. Very few would dare even touch him, let alone strike him but Anael had always been different.

“ _ Firstly, it’s Anna not Anael, not anymore, _ ” the red winged angel said, “ _ Secondly, Castiel got Dean out of Hell before he drew blood. Thirdly, there is a Fallen on Earth and he is doing far more to prevent the end of days than you are. _ ”

“ _ The Fallen are dead, _ ” Michael said.

“ _ Not anymore they aren’t. His name is Chimera and he isn’t like any Fallen I have ever seen, I don’t even recognize him as one of our siblings, _ ” Anna told him, eyes narrowing, “ _ And he has a Blessed. _ ”

“ _ A Blessed? _ ” Michael asked, “ _ There’s a living Blessed on Earth? _ ”

Anna’s head tilted in clear confusion as she stared up at Michael in disbelief, “ _ How long, Michael? How long have you been here that you didn’t notice a Blessed on Earth? Have you completely closed yourself off from the Host? _ ”

“ _ I have been seeking revelation since the younger Winchester died, _ ” Michael told her.

“ _ Oh, for- _ ” Anna paused and pinched the bridge of her nose, “ _ The Righteous Man got out of Hell before he drew blood, the Apocalypse hasn’t begun, Sam hasn’t fallen for the demon’s tricks and remains pure of soul, Chimera has executed an angel who was killing members of his own garrison. It isn’t over, you don’t need to kill Lucifer yet. So get off your knees, go out there, and figure out what Raphael’s been doing since you’ve been in here because I don’t think He would approve. _ ”

“ _ The Fallen killed an angel? _ ” Michael demanded, back drawing straight.

“ _ Two, actually, _ ” Anna confirmed, “ _ Uriel and Zachariah, the latter was in Hell, the former in defence of his Blessed. _ ”

“ _ What? _ ” the archangel barked almost as soon as the last word left the younger angel’s mouth.

“ _ I thought that would get your attention, _ ” she murmured before smiling up at him with a wicked gleam in her eye, “ _ The Blessed currently on Earth, the first in over two thousand years, is the Blessed of a Fallen. Her name is Horae and she was the only person keeping me sane as my mind slowly deteriorated due to mental overload. _ ”

Michael’s wings fidgeted and he was trying to hold back the rage that had slipped into his grace at the thought of the Fallen, “ _ I appear to have miscalculated. _ ”

_ “You need to go to Earth, see it for yourself, _ ” Anna told him, “ _ make your own decision on what to do next. But, you need to stop Raphael first, he’s part of the reason I left. The decisions he has made in regards to the apocalypse and the manipulations he has dedicated himself to have stripped more humans of their free will than should be condoned. _ ”

“ _ I would need a vessel, _ ” Michael mused.

“ _ John Winchester had three children, the youngest is currently in college to become a doctor. _ ”


	19. Breaking a Cage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel watches Chimera break the Cage wide open.

Chimera was a beautiful flyer, granted he flew like he hadn’t been taught how to do it properly but he pulled things that Gabriel had never seen people do before. It added to the theory the Messenger had been rolling around in his brain since he’d caught a feel of the Fallen’s grace.

Gabriel watched intently as Chimera twitched his wings, slipped through several dimensional planes before arrowing straight into the depths of Hell without a flicker of hesitation. At this point the only reason he was able to keep in step was the fact that he had three sets of wings and even that was pushing it.

Gabriel had never met his match when it came to flying before and he was liking it far more than he probably should. Chimera was mesmerizing and the challenge of following him was pumping an addictive thrill through his blood.

When he hit Hell it was like the heat and energy of the plane smacked him in the grace. He faltered, briefly and Chimera slowed as he allowed the angel behind him to catch his barings.

As they travelled further and further into the bowels of Hell, demons fleeing before them as they caught sight of Chimera. The terror writ large across the faces of the few that maintained human form was interesting as where the Hellhounds that ran at his heels for the first few minutes after their entrance to Hell.

They flew deeper and deeper, through the smoke and screams of souls lost in pain. The air around them got colder as they entered lower levels of Hell, the terrain darkening and demons thinning out. The smell of blood and pain faded into that of ice and angel wing ash.

And the Gabriel felt him, Lucifer, his big brother for the first time in milenia and he almost fell out of the air.

He was different than he had been before he’d been locked in the Cage, calmer, no longer a whirling knot of rage and betrayal. There was contentment, soft love, and a deep, never ending loneliness that brought tears to the younger archangel’s eyes.

“ _ Lucifer, _ ” he breathed into the darkness, “ _ Brother. _ ”

“ _ Gabriel _ ,” Lucifer called back, the joy in his voice blatantly apparent.

Gabriel sped up, wings beating harder as he threw himself around a corner and froze in shock. The Cage loomed in front of him, gleaming a clean, bright silver in the light of the hellfire that Chimera had set around the perimeter of the cave. Squiggly, old enochian symbols marched across each individual bar where they crisscrossed in a strange diamond pattern.

There was an empty body lying on the floor. It was blonde and shorter than Chimera but taller than Dean Winchester. It was male and its skin looked like it had never even seen an hour of daylight.

But that wasn’t what drew Gabriel into the room, what really drew the youngest archangel was the sight of Lucifer’s bright grace pressed so tightly against the bars that some of it was oozing through. He rushed over to press one hand against it.

“ _ Brother, you’re alive! _ ” Lucifer cheered as their grace connected for the first time in millenia.

“ _ Lucifer, _ ” Gabriel breathed, letting his forehead drop forward to clunk against the bars of his brother’s prison, “ _ Why bring me here? _ ”

“ _ There’s a way to break the Cage without starting the apocalypse, _ ” the Fallen said as he puttered around the cave, “ _ I thought you might want to see. _ ”

“ _ What? _ ” Gabriel asked and turned to look over his shoulder at Chimera, “ _ No there isn’t. _ ”

“ _ Read the Enochian if you don’t believe me, _ ” Chimera replied as he pored holy oil into a bowl by the entrance to the cave.

He clicked his fingers twice and a tiny flame sparked to life between his thumb and forefinger. It stayed green when it hit the pool of oil at his feet, flaring brighter and larger as it reached the fuel.

Gabriel blinked a bit in confusion before turning to squint at the Enochian on the bars. The sigils were old, almost as old as Gabriel himself but they were carved deep and clear so it only took a few moments for the translation to pop into his mind.

“ _ Here lies Lucifer, Son of Morning, second eldest of the angels, betrayer of humanity, _ ” he muttered under his breath as his gaze moved over the curling script, “ _ This is his prison and he shall lay here until the end of time. _ ”

“ _ Move three bars over, _ ” Chimera called from where he was circling something in chalk.

Gabriel frowned at the ritual that was forming around him before turning back to the Cage, “ _ Early release may only be achieved if the son of Earth, Heaven, and Hell decrees that he may be freed… _ What the sugar loving fuck?!”

Gabriel whirled to face Chimera. The other man had produced the blood filled viel from where ever he’d put it and had pored three drops onto the body lying at the center of the incredibly complex ritual formed around the Cage.

“ _ There is a reason I’m called Chimera you know, _ ” Chimera smirked up at him and Gabriel could feel his mouth working in an attempt to get something more than a squeak out past the lump in his throat.

“ _ How? _ ” the archangel asked.

“ _ Simply put, _ ” Chimera straightened, “ _ I was a cambion that found some grace. Now, I’m going to need you to move out of the way so I can get at that section of Cage. _ ”

“ _ No, I mean, how are you going to pop the Cage open without causing the Apocalypse? _ ” Gabriel shifted out of the way.

“ _ He’s going to wedge some of his power in between the bars and slice through a couple, _ ” Lucifer piped up.

Chimera nodded as he drew a couple of sigils on top of the existing script, “ _ I’m going to crack it, as long as I don’t touch the seals we’ll be fine. And once he’s out I can funnel him into his new body without much trouble. _ ”

“ _ How do you know it won’t burn up? Grace is some pretty strong stuff, _ ” Gabriel said.

“ _ Humans aren’t very careful about where they leave their hair. You’d think hunters would know better but they really don’t, _ ” Chimera finished his writing and gestured the veil away.

Gabriel blinked at that comment and snorted in amusement, “ _ You raided Sampunzel’s hairbrush then? _ ”

Chimera made an affirming noise as he double checked the sigils, “ _ I didn’t really have to, he sheds on his pillow at night. We’re going to have to move away a bit and you’re going to need to move back, Luci, or you are going to burst the Cage. _ ”

Lucifer whined as he pulled away from the bars, grace retreating barely far enough away that he isn’t pressed flat to the bars. Chimera nodded and backed up to stand over the body on the floor. Gabriel takes that as a cue to back up as well and the Fallen grinned at him in approval as the archangel settled at his left hand.

“ _ Now remember, Lucifer, you can’t slip through until I crack all nine of the bars. Got it?” _

_ “Yes.” _

Chimera nodded in approval, took a deep breath, and raised his arms above his head. Nothing happened for a few seconds and then Gabriel felt the beginning sturings of power swelling up around the Fallen. Hellfire burned across his skin, twining itself around his arms and springing from his hands.

There was something underneath the flames, something Gabriel could barely see under the weight of the fire. It was familiar and Gabriel knew that he shouldn't be looking at it but curiosity had always been his greatest sin. So he looked, peered at the thing coiled at Chimera’s center.

Chimera took a deep breathe and cried, “ _ Break.” _ The first bar of the Cage shattered with a force to shake the ground beneath their feet.

The coil was a bit like grace and a bit like a soul but different, mixed together and melted into one being with the weight of the flames that had been pulled on top of them. Crushing them, hiding them until no one would be able to tell the difference and Gabriel abruptly realized that he was looking at three separate beings all crammed into one body. Who the hell could have done that? What the hell could have done that?

“ _ Break.” _

By all rights all that power should have killed all three of them, burned up the body as all three fought for dominance. Earth, Heaven, Hell all had separate and distinct properties to them that did not mix well with one another. Earth was ever changing but demons still had to break souls before they could fully embrace Hell’s fire. But Heaven.

“ _ Break.” _

Maybe with a soul for a buffer so the two extremes could coexist but that would have worn away at the soul between them until it was nothing more than a whisper of its former strength. And that didn't describe what Gabriel was looking at at all.

“ _ Break.” _

Unless… unless the body was the Angel's True Vessel. That would explain the mixing of the two beings, they would be two sides of the same coin, perfectly attuned to one another in a way that most would never achieve.

“ _ Break,” _ Chimera hissed, visibly struggling now as the Cage starts to fight back.

Which would mean that this powerful being next to him, this fake Fallen was one of his brothers, a high ranking brother too. One of the first brought into being after the Archangels.

“ _ B-reak. _ ”

A brother, one who didn't want to kill him, one who wanted to save the one brother who deserved it least, who had caused all the suffering in the world.

“ _ B-b-break,” _ Chimera was stuttering now, power fading fast.

And Gabriel couldn't watch this, couldn't let this happen so he threw his power at his brother as he tried to hold the spell stable. The spell wavered, flickered, and then strengthened just enough to-

“ _ Break!” _ They both cried as one and the last bar crumbled under the weight of two Angels at full power.

Lucifer burst free of the Cage in a wave of laughter and joyous grace.

 

~*****~

 

The Winchesters were half an hour into their reading before Sam’s back went rigidly straight and his eyes went impossibly wide in shock. Dean blinked at him as his younger brother slowly set the pages he had down and turned to look at him.

“Did we seriously leave Jess alone with an unknown psychic we just met?” Sam asked.

Dean blinked again as he stared into Sam’s horrified eyes and then his eyes went wide enough to match, “Holy shit.”

They continued to stare at each other for half a second before they both bolted out of their seats, shoving papers, Jess’s books, and the red pens they’d been using to circle important facts into Sam’s bag.

The ride back to the house was tense. Sam was practically vibrating with tension and Dean had gone grimly silent. The only interruption had been when Sam had made a furious sound at a text from Jess.

“What’s it say?” Dean asked.

“‘Everything’s good, you can come back now’,” Sam gritted out.

“Well, shit,” Dean pulled the impala to a halt in front of the house.

Sam was out of the car and dashing towards Chuck’s front door the instant the car stopped. Dean cursed under his breath before yanking the stick into park and following him. He crashed into Sam as soon as they got into the house, his baby brother had frozen in the doorway to stare at the sight in front of him.

There were four people sitting in a circle on Chuck’s carpet while the Prophet looking on in mild horror. Three of them Dean recognized but the fourth, the pale blonde man with an eerie resemblance to Sam, Dean had no clue who he was.

Two of the three he recognized were Jess and Chimera but the third, the one who’d sprawled him self across Chimera and the blonde’s laps…

“Trickster,” Sam growled and the little shit waggled his fingers at them.

“Hey there, Winchesters, long time no see,” the infuriating creature chirped before sticking a lollipop in his mouth.

“Sam, Dean,” Chimera’s voice was firm and called all the attention in the room to him in an instant, “may I introduce Gabriel and Lucifer, two of the Archangels of Heaven.”

And that, well, Dean wasn’t quite sure what exactly he was supposed to do with that fact.


	20. A Tale of Two Michaels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soooo, about the Michael that Chimera left in the future...

Michael had just taken control of the youngest Winchester’s body when he heard it, whispered across his grace like a note of music just out of reach,  _ “Lucifer Morningstar is saved” _ and his blood ran cold.

_ Michael was floating in the nothingness of the place between worlds when he felt it, the blast of power that the Abomination let out, the shattering of the Cage’s bars and a satisfied grin tore across his face like it had been put there by a knife. _

“Did you feel that?” Anna asked, drawing closer to Michael to press their shoulders together, red wings arching out behind them both in a protective stance.

_ His wings spread out around him, slightly tatty and missing feathers from the flight from his home timeline, the hurt and were barely functional but still functional nonetheless. _

A smile pulled at the corner of his lips as he took in the dark expression on her face, Anna had always been protective even when in the presence of those who needed it least.

_ With one massive beat of damaged wings he flung himself through the ether, homing in on the place where the blast had originated. _

“Yes,” Michael said, “but I’m surprised you did.”

_ He felt reality bend around him, ripping and tearing, shredding around him as he plunged into a world not his own, knees impacting against a hardwood floor. _

“I’ve heard Chimera before,” Anna answered the unspoken question and then they weren’t alone in the room.

_ Michael shook himself and looked up- _

Michael stared down into his own eyes, wings flared out behind him. Anna gasped and he shoved her behind him to protect her from the imposter on the floor.

_ Michael grinned at his past self and rose calmly to his feet. The protective stance he took to block the Traitor from view made him chuckle in amusement. He would learn very soon that she wasn’t worth the saving. _

“Who are you?!” Michael ordered, “Identify yourself!”

_ Michael just smiled at his other self, “I am your future.” _

“Time travel is a forbidden practice for a reason,” Michael hissed, “There is too much risk of destabilizing the timeline. Why would I risk such a thing? Who are you?!”

_ Michael smirked at his past self, letting the command in his voice slide off of him like it was nothing but water, “Oh, it isn’t all that hard. Not when the timeline is already gone.” _

Michael took a step back from the being in front of him, horror crawling across his face as he stared at the crippled angel in front of him, “What did you do?”

_ Michael’s smirk grew as his wings spread out behind him, preparing for flight, “I didn’t do anything.” _

 

~*****~

 

Once the incredibly awkward conversation about Lucifer’s intentions towards the universe, humanity, and Sam were out of the way the two Winchesters sat down in the circle. Jess was leaning against Sam’s side and his arm was wrapped firmly around her waist, Lucifer watching them both with visible awe. Chimera was amused at how uncomfortable Dean was with the entire situation.

“Alright,” the blonde barked, drawing most of the eyes in the room to him, “what now? We’ve got one half of the apocalypse taken care of. What about the other homicidally inclined dickbag?”

“I don’t know,” Chimera admitted with a sigh, “He could be glad that he doesn’t have to kill his brother. He could also hop on a murder spree. It’s a toss up really.”

“You saved Anna,” Lucifer commented, “she was normally the best at smacking sense back into him.”

“Anna?” Gabriel asked.

“Anael,” Chimera muzzed, possibilities floating through his mind, “she fell, we helped her get her grace back a few weeks ago.”

“Anael’s Fallen?” Gabriel flailed to a sitting position, “There was no talk of that!”

Chimera blinked at Gabriel’s alarmed expression, “Not Fallen, fell. Lowercase, Gabriel. She tore her grace out so she could become human and her name’s Anna now.”

“What about… the other one?” Jess asked after a moment of hesitation.

“He should be dead,” Chimera frowned to himself.

“When has should ever applied to any of us?” she raised an eyebrow at him in question.

“True,” he acknowledged.

“What are you talking about?” Dean snapped.

Chimera took a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair in exasperation, “How much do you know about time travel?”

There was a solid minute of silence as the group started at him with a collective blue screen of death. The only two who appeared unfazed were Jess and Lucifer.

“That is highly illegal,” Gabriel said carefully as his mind ground through several realizations at once.

“Not when-” Chimera’s head jerked up to stare at the ceiling, “Well, shit.”

“What?” Jess asked, hands straying towards her knives.

“You're not allowed to tell me you told me so,” the Fallen snapped and beat his wings, vanishing into the air with half a thought.

“What?” Dean deadpanned, irritation barely concealed under a thin veneer of calm.

“Well, this will be fun,” Jess muttered and stood, “alright, Luci, you’re helping me put up the wards, Gabe, go make sure Chimera doesn’t get himself killed.”

Her voice was sharp and clear, cutting through the air like one of her blades. Her back was straight, her eyes alert, and magic glittered on her finger tips, ready to be used at a moment’s notice.

“Jess?” Sam asked as Gabriel vanished with a snap of his fingers and a whiff of cotton candy scented air.

“Sam, Dean, take my knives and go get my sword from the trunk and if an angel with grey wings shows up pray like you’ve never prayed before,” Jess ordered, handed Sam her knives, and turned towards Chuck, “Where are the four corners of your house?”

“Jess, what’s going on?” Sam tried again.

“Our past caught up with us, Sam,” Jess said, “or, more accurately, Chimera’s future did.”

“What?” Dean said again, face darkening further.

“You died, Dean, and the world was already going to shit. You shouldn’t be all that surprised that Sammy decided to take drastic measures,” Jess snapped and then froze as the two Winchester’s stared at her in shock, “Well, crap, angel’s out of the bag now.”

 

~*****~

 

Chimera flew as fast as his wings would carry him, it was slower then he could have managed with all three sets but Gabriel was following him at top speed. It didn’t really matter either, he didn’t need to be the fastest, he just needed to be faster than Michael. If he was lucky, he’d reach the angel before he got a chance to find the other Michael, the Past Michael, the one who was still in Heaven.

Fuck.

Chimera really hoped that he didn’t end up in Heaven, that would end badly for everyone involved. Weaker angels trying to fight him, fledglings attempting to interfere with the fight, trying to avoid hurting his siblings.

Raphael showing up.

If the supposed healer showed up Chimera didn’t think he’d be able to resist stabbing him in the face. Cas might not be dead in this timeline but Chimera was never going to forgive any Raphael for what he’d done to his Cas.

Chimera shook his head and refocused as Michael came into view, wings torn and broken, ripped and frayed in a way Chimera hadn’t even thought was possible. He was flying but just barely, moving like he was struggling through mud rather than gliding through water.

There was a feeling of shock from Gabriel as Chimera hit the archangel at top speed, knocking them both out of the space between spaces and into the physical plane. Blue sky and crystal clear water spun around them as the two fought for dominance, grace connecting and disconnecting in blinding flashes of light.

Chimera shoved away from Michael, back winging furiously as he put distance between them. Gabriel popped into existence a few wing lengths behind him and watched as the two angels circled one another but Chimera couldn’t pay attention to him at the moment.

Michael had pulled his blade from somewhere but even Chimera could tell there was something wrong with it. There were places where black spread along its length like rust along iron and there were chips missing from the once sharp edge. The wounded sound Gabriel made only confirmed it.

“ _ Brother, _ ” Michael called, seeming to notice Gabriel for the first time, “ _ you live! Have you come to help me destroy this abomination? _ ”

“Michael,” Gabriel whispered, “what have you done to yourself?”

“ _ I haven’t done anything, _ ” Michael said and launched himself at Chimera.

Chimera dodged but only barely, the blade skimming past his wing and missing a feather by millimeters. He cursed under his breath and dove to buy himself time, he may have all of Lucifer’s memories but hadn’t had time to sort through them all yet, that had been relegated to the “after the world doesn’t end” checklist and he was regretting that now.

Muscle memory might be enough to keep him out of the way of Michael’s blade but that probably wouldn’t last for long. Sorting through the millennia to find Michael’s combat training was going to take time, time Chimera didn’t have.

And Michael needed to die, now, before he could convince the other Michael, the Past Michael to end the world.

Michael  _ might _ not be crazy enough to start the apocalypse when Lucifer was already out of the cage and alive but Chimera wasn’t going to take that chance. Lucifer hadn’t been completely mad when Chimera had gotten to him but this Michael was completely batshit and he didn’t know how to snap him out of it.

Granted he didn’t particularly want to know how to snap Michael out of it either but that was neither here nor there.

Gabriel watched in horror as Chimera fought the tattered archangel. It was like watching Lucifer and Michael’s first fight all over again. Fear coursed through his grace, freezing him in place as Chimera moved out of the way of blows a hair's breathe before they connected.

What had happened to Michael to cause this? What Chimera had to endure to become who he was? What nightmare future could have brought this down on the Fallen?

Gabriel’s eyes widened as Michael’s blade ripped through the tip of Chimera’s right wing. He couldn’t watch this.

With a deep breath Gabriel drew his blade for the first time in millenia and dove into the fray, blocking the next blow from Michael’s blade. It would have pierced Chimera’s heart, a killing blow.

Michael retreated a few meters to stare at Gabriel, “ _ Brother? What are you doing? _ ”

“Michael, I love you but you are a great big bag of dicks and I am not letting you kill the angel that pulled Lucifer from the pit, whole and sane,” Gabriel adjusted his grip on his blade as Chimera’s wingbeats evened out behind him.

“Gabriel, move!” Chimera cried, a desperation in his voice that was completely unfamiliar to the youngest archangel and Gabriel turned to smirk at him.

“ _ He’s corrupted you! _ ” Michael hissed

“NO!” a different voice cried out and the next few moments seemed to move like stretched taffy.

A different Michael had popped into existence above them, a panting Anael clinging to him and looking vaguely like she’d been pulled through a hedge backwards. Chimera’s eyes went wide with horror as he lunged forward, arm’s extended towards Gabriel.

The Messenger turned back towards Michael but slowly, oh so slowly, only catching the glint of the angel blade out of the corner of his eye. Michael’s face was split in a sneer, the grace underneath a roiling mass of darkness and light twisted together until it resembled an infection wrapped in poison. And no matter what happened next that wasn’t Michael.

Gabriel tried to sweep his wings forward to block the blow, as if that would do anything to stop his oncoming death.

And then the moment snapped as the blade sank deep between the fourth and fifth rib on Chimera’s left side, right next to the base of his wing.

Wings.

There were six of them. The hellfire set Gabriel had seen before, a wispy looking pair that looked a lot like a human soul, and the last looked suspiciously like Lucifer’s wings. Pieces began to click into place and Gabriel wasn’t all that sure he liked the picture they were forming.

“Fuck,” Chimera groaned as a blade melted out of his skin and into his hand before turning to bury it between between Michael’s eyes, “That hurt.”

Michael only had enough time to blink once before his eyes lit with a dim light  and his corpse tumbled out of the air to splash into the ocean below. Chimera didn’t even flinch as he reached around his body and yanked the archangel blade from his own flesh.

“Well, that answers that question,” his voice was unnaturally calm as he examined the blade in his hand and then turned to look at Gabriel, “Are you alright?”

“Gabriel!” Michael, the other Michael, Past Michael cried out as he dove for his little brother and Chimera barely refrained from lunging for him as he swept the smaller angel up into a hug.

Gabriel looked shell shocked as his arms snaked around Michael’s back. Chimera almost laughed at the look of utter confusion on the blonde’s face but stayed tensed up, just in case.

“Thank you,” Michael told Chimera as he turned to look at the Fallen, “May I at least see the face of my brother’s savior?”

Chimera hesitated for a second and then reached up to pull his mask off. There wasn’t really any point to hiding anymore. Everything was taken care of, the apocalypse was over, Michael was dead and gone.

He kept his eyes closed as the mask came off, not wanting to see the looks of horror on Gabriel’s face as he realized exactly what Chimera was. The indrawn breath of shock was enough to send a bolt of disappointment up his spine.

And then, he ran, all six wings stretched wide behind him as he flew faster than he had in his entire life. He needed time and it seemed like that was all he was going to have for quite a while.


	21. And All for Want of a Nail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chimera finally gives Gabriel the flowers.

“You know, you could come back to Bobby’s and celebrate with the rest of us,” a voice from behind him said and Chimera went very still before relaxing as Gabriel’s grace brushed across his own, “Jess would be happy about it and Luci would be ecstatic.”

“Do they even know what I am?” he asked, eyes riveted on the sky above him.

“Yeah, Jess told them, she’s known this entire time you know,” Gabriel said, drawing level with the other man.

“Figures, but I’m pretty sure that my past self is still processing my existence and Dean…” Chimera trailed off into a sigh and flopped back onto the grass, rubbing both hands over his face.

“Dean is more frustrated with himself than anything else and with the way my baby brother’s eyeing him, I don’t think he’ll be paying attention to that for much longer,” Gabriel said and folded himself down to sit cross legged next to the other angel, “I finally figured out why you aren’t jealous of my wings by the by.”

“I have six myself. What do I have to be jealous of?” the brunette asked.

“And what lovely specimens they are, cream puff,” the Messenger cooed and reached out to ghost his fingers over the middle set.

Chimera slapped his hand away with the Hellfire wings that he’d kept on the surface for so long, “Don’t, I don’t know what they’ll do if you touch them and I’d rather not find out.”

Gabriel waggled his eyebrows, “Aww, don’t want me fondling the soul there, sugar plum?”

Chimera rolled his eyes and then gave the other angel a bitch face.

“I died, didn’t I?” Gabriel asked and Chimera’s face went utterly blank, “That’s a yes then. Thought so.”

“Did Lucifer tell you?” Chimera asked.

“No, I managed to piece it together, you aren’t all that subtle. Terminator, really?” Gabriel asked.

“You still didn’t figure out the extent of the time travel until I practically waved a red flag in your face,” Chimera said, “Besides the concept was similar.”

“How so?”

“For want of a nail the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe a horse was lost, for want of a horse a rider was lost, for want of a rider a message was lost, for want of a message a battle was lost, for want of a victory a kingdom fell. And all for want of a nail,” Chimera murmured, “You died, Lucifer went on a rampage of demon kind, we couldn’t find Pestilence, and then Dean… Anyway, by the time Luce found me he’d already practically destroyed his vessel.”

“So you took advantage, smart, how did you subsume him anyway, that’s one of the things I couldn’t really figure out,” Gabriel popped a lollipop into his mouth, leaning back to gaze up at the sky.

Silence and then the sound of a throat awkwardly clearing, “I, uh, ate him.”

Gabriel blinked up at one of the vaguely horse shaped puffs of cloud above them before the words fully registered and he flailed around to stare down at Chimera. That had not been what Gabriel had expected to hear and the sheepish look on the brunette’s face definitely wasn’t appropriate for the situation.

“What?!” Gabriel nearly bit down on the hard bit of candy in his mouth before he managed the ware with all to pull it out from between parted lips, gesturing at the man next to him with it, “How?!”

“I slit his throat and drank his grace straight from the source,” Chimera’s face had settled into an expression of grim acceptance, “My blade’s on the porch if you want to see if that’ll work on my. I’m not sure if it will, but you can try, just give me a few seconds head start.”

“What the hell, Chimera?!” Gabriel spat out after a few second of disbelieving mouth flapping, “I’m not going to kill you for taking option what-the-fuck in the sea of shitty options! You’re one of my brothers and you just helped us save the fucking world!”

“Michael wanted to kill me.”

“Michevil was several suits short of a full deck! Hell, our Michael is missing a few cards, luckily it’s only the king and queen of hearts!”

“There’s a reason I’m called Chimera, Gabriel,” Chimera looked up into Gabriel’s golden eyes and the sorrow in his own hazel orbs made the Archangel go still, “I’m a monster and I don’t know if I’ll ever die or can be killed. I don't even know if my mind will be able to handle the next few centuries, let alone eternity or what it’ll turn me into. I don’t want to become Michael, Gabriel, or your father, I don’t-”

Gabriel stuffed a giant cookie into his mouth to shut him up and the Chimera blinked up at the other man in confusion, “Shut up, just shut up, okay, chocolate chip.”

Silence for a few seconds as Gabriel stared down at the sad man next to him. He finally sighed and flopped down over his chest.

“I’m not going to kill you, Chimera,” Gabriel said, “You aren’t Michevil and you aren’t my father and if you ever turn into them I will kill you but that’s not today. You helped us kill a psychotic version of my older brother from a timeline you and Jess originated from. You helped save the world. I think that that deserves at least an afternoon of enjoying time with your family.”

“They’re not mine though,” Chimera grumbled through the cookie in his mouth.

“Shut up and eat your cookie,” Gabriel snapped, “and yes they are, they may not be your original family but they’re still your family.”

Chimera chewed and swallowed the rest of his cookie as he thought that over, “I… I have something to show you.”

Gabriel sat up, “Oh really, honey bunch? What is it?”

Chimera stood up, “What is with those nicknames? And close your eyes, it’s a surprise.”

Gabriel grinned and obeyed, “Alright, is it your dick?”

Sputtering and then a yelp that sounded vaguely like Chimera had breathed in wrong. Gabriel chuckled at the half choked noise and the embarrassed feather ruffling as he tracked Chimera’s movement across the backyard to the porch. It was interesting to hear someone else with six wings move, he had been the only one with three sets of wings up until now and had never experienced the sound of them moving on another person.

Chimera was back in a few moments and then a cool, round, tapered cylinder was pressed into Gabriel’s hands. He blinked his eyes open and gaped as he stared down at a handful of golden flowers with silver stocks planted in dark earth.

“So, when I went to your grave to catch a breather I found them and well, I thought that,” Chimera paused and cleared his throat as a blush spread across his cheeks.

Gabriel very carefully set the pot to one side and stood up.

“Gabriel?” Chimera asked, eyebrows furrowing in worry, “Do you not like-”

Gabriel launched himself at Chimera, wrapping his arms around the other man’s neck and crashing their mouths together.

The kiss was awkward all teeth clashing together and lips out of alignment, noses bumping against one another and foreheads knocking and Gabriel was starting to unbalance Chimera but that was only for the first few seconds as Chimera caught his barings. As soon as he caught on to what was happening he wrapped his arms around Gabriel’s waist and hiked the shorter Angel’s body up to a more reasonable height for the kiss.

They broke apart and Gabriel buried his face in Chimera’s neck as the taller man’s wings wrapped around him and their grace dancing against each other.

“You brought it back,” Gabriel whispered, “I’ve been nothing but an asshole to you, I killed Dean over a hundred times, and when you saw them you brought them back.”

“Your an idiot, Gabriel,” Chimera chuckled under his breath, “you may be an ashole but you died for us.”

“What?”

“You didn’t just die in a skirmish, you put yourself between us and Lucifer to buy us enough time to get out of their. He didn’t mean to kill you but he did and I had to walk back into that hotel and see your wings charred into the dining room floor. And then I had to bury you.”

“That,” Gabriel paused and leaned back to look at Chimera’s face, “that doesn’t sound like me.”

“Yeah, well, Kali was there too and I don’t think you’re the most rational when your dick is involved,” Chimera chuckled as the Archangel blinked at him in shock.

Gabriel snorted in an attempt to suppress his laughter and then Chimera’s eyebrow quirked and he lost it, curling up around Chimera as he laughed himself silly.

Chimera grinned and tightened his grip on the smaller man. Everything was going to be alright, all thanks to an accident, a stupid fucking accident.

All for want of a nail.


End file.
